Inktober 2018
by NullNoMore
Summary: Happy Inktober. The plan: A very short story a day, written in ink first, photos on request. Maybe I will explain who shot H.B. Maybe we're done with "let's eat Tatsu" jokes. Maybe not. Starting with Ch. 10, the stories interconnect: someone shares all the dirty secrets in NLA and OC's get hurt. All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but there will be plenty OCs.
1. 01 Poisonous

**Inktober 2019 01 Poisonous**

 **a/n: H.B. needs to keep his post-mission reports shorter, while Phog may need to expand. Maybe not.**

 **Swears, because Vandham.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft. Not sure whose Cross that is.**

* * *

Vandham glared at the three BLADEs lined up in a neat row on the other side of his desk. "What I have in front of me is garbage," he said, clearly keeping his voice to a lower growl with effort.

"I thought my report was quite comprehensive," sniffed H.B.

Vandahm looked at the glimmering text boxes floating on his desk surface. "Those too. Your team's reports, all four of them, they're just proof of the first thing. Garbage!" His voice had risen to a roar, and he'd leapt to his feet, pounding the desk so hard that the screens had winked out. He paused, patted the table top gently, and the pale blue squares popped cheerfully back into existence. He looked from soldier to soldier. "You get sent on a milk run, clearing ictuses plus re-tuning a probe, and you come back two teammates down and hand in … this … this garbage as an explanation."

"The details are all…"

"H.B., boy, your report is 30 goddamned pages long. I'll walk to Oblivia and punch those scorpions myself rather than wade through that mess."

"I would be happy to prepare a review for you," offered H.B.

"That's what the first report is supposed to be, dumbass. A review! But you had to write me a novel first thing. The Mimeosome Maintenance Center team was thinking of strapping you to the gurney to keep you immobile while they removed the bullets."

"My shoulder is fine now, thank you for asking," said H.B. with a noticeable trace of sulk.

"I didn't ask." Vandham swiveled his glare to the next subject, Cross. "You! Your report consisted of a 15% off coupon at Barista Court."

The rookie nodded.

"Real cute. The day they make me pay my tab is the day after the Nopon take over NLA," Vandham said with exasperation.

His eyes finally landed on the third member, a tall young man with a mop of blonde hair. Vandham sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'm sorry about Frye, son. The MMC says he'll be fine in a week." Vandham careful arranged a twinkling splinter of text with a square fingertip. "Your brother's report is gibberish, no surprise there, considering. But yours…." He sighed again. "It's, what, all of two lines?"

"They're good lines." Phog's voice was earnest and strangely free from intimidation. He reached over the desk, startling the others, and spun the smallest text box towards himself. He leaned over to read it, silently, then looked up at the Commander. "I think I covered everything that wouldn't be in the medical reports or the battle stats."

Vandham stared at him with astonishment for a split second, then shouted, "Get the hell out of my office. All of you!"

After they had left, Vandham reviewed the last slip of a report, then snorted. "I guess he did, at that."

 _"Actually," said H.B., pushing up his glasses," I believe the word you were thinking of was 'venomous.'"  
_ _"Phog, bro, hand me my gun."_

* * *

 **A/n: First day of Inktober, I wrote two lines and declared the story complete. Then I went and slapped more story before them, but I'm not convinced I did it any favors.**

 **Next up: Tranquil. No idea, but if it isn't Lake Ciel, where could it be? Unless I slap more story onto this one...**

ps: Drop me a suggestion and see what happens, she says with some trepidation.


	2. 02 Tranquil

**Inktober19 02 Tranquil**

 **a/n: Two BLADEs go on a collectable collecting mission. Nothing happens. Sometimes life can be like that.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and I am eternally grateful that they used "fiKAIeldJOU" by Hiroyuki Sawano for all the deep ocean surface areas. Case is my baby Cross, ready for the port doyouhearmeNintendoprettyplease to Switch.**

* * *

Case sighed with contentment. "Ahhh. This is the life." She wriggled in the pilot's seat experimentally "Hey, Gwin. You think, if I pushed the seat all the way back, I could maybe steer with my feet?"

"Don't be stupid," crackled a voice over her radio. Her partner didn't sound nearly as relaxed as she was feeling.

"I'm liking this," she continued. She swerved her skell in a wide loop over the glassy ocean waters before returning to Gwin's ride. "It's good for my soul."

"Yippee. A whole afternoon of nothing," Gwin snapped.

"We're getting paid," she reminded him. She shimmied slightly off course again, to pick up another blue shiny. The display blipped a gentle negative. Not what they were after, oh well, there were dozens more chances. "Paid hourly," she added.

"Lowest rate going," fumed Gwin.

"Since when have you been credit hungry?" Case asked with a touch of concern. "Because if you need another insurance ticket…"

"It's not that and, no, I haven't wrecked my skell recently. Obviously." His stolid mech veered into her path, then moved back into its own lane. "Case, doesn't it bug you that they sent us out on a job for babies?"

Case shrugged and aimed for another marker on her display, a twinkle of electric blue. A handful of arpeggio indicated a positive strike, and she smiled brightly.

"Case?"

Right, she thought, she should probably turn on a video link. Shrugs and smiles didn't work over the radio that well. She fumbled to set up a side screen on her display board. Now she could see Gwin's face, pink with worry, from the corner of her eye.

"I get sent on anything and everything, Gwin. It's all good, and it's better when I get paid." She stretched awkwardly, one arm at a time, then pulled the skell into a gentle pirouette to pick up an awkwardly placed collectable. Positive again, nice. "Best is when I don't have to shoot things."

"But it's so boring!" snapped Gwin. "The rankest rookie could do this! We could at least be collecting them in Cauldros instead of out in nowheresville."

Case let her mech drift to a halt. The ocean water splashed playfully at its feet, scattered by the skell's propulsion. She looked at the trace of moons hanging in the sky, the comforting union of the horizon, the gentle waves of the neutral, nameless ocean. She thought of Cauldros, built from lava, smoke, and ruined technology.

"Yeah, nope, that's a hard no for me." She pushed the throttle to move forward and had an inspiration. "Hey, you want a little excitement? We could go take a peek at the Lifehold. If we sneak inside, we could even visit your better self." She twitched. "Both our better selves," she amended hastily.

When Gwin didn't answer immediately, she peeped at his face on the screen. She couldn't read his expression. Hopefully he hadn't noticed her slip. Then she realized what it was. Of course, how stupid of her, the place must hold some bad memories for him. "Never mind," she said. "Look, we're only two dinguses short. If we turn back now, we're sure to pick them up on the way home. Sound good?"

"Yeah, fine, whatever."

"Put your skell on auto and you can even take a nap. I'll ping you when we're close to shore." She saw her guidance beacon engage with satisfaction. From now on, she'd keep her flight pattern gentle, drifting only slightly to catch new finds. There was no rush to hit their target number. She'd save playing crack the whip until it was time to wake him up.

* * *

 **a/n: a) More tranquil music ideas: Vaughan Williams, Serenade to Music and The Lark Ascending, but mostly Hiroyuki Sawano's fiKAIeldJOU. b) Case never went to the Lifehold, nor is her body stored there. She's kinda like Yelv, if you know what I mean. Shhh, she needs to keep that a secret.**

 **Next up: Roasted. There will be Tatsu jokes, I can feel it now.**


	3. 03 Roasted

**Inktober19 03 Roasted**

 **a/n: Lin and Tatsu are in trouble in a lava cave. Another mission where nothing much happens, so we might as well have snacks.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.**

* * *

"Tatsu, don't you dare come down here!" squeaked Lin Lee Koo. She stared furiously up at him. Too late. Her rotund sidekick had already lept from the top of the basalt pillar rising from the lava pools. Through a mixture of scrambling and fluttering he didn't so much plummet as slither to the narrow lava-free zone where she'd been sheltering. Lin stretched out a booted foot to keep him from slipping into the molten lake that now had both of them trapped.

"You noodle. How am I going to get you back to the top?"

"Linly not getting self up to top either. Tatsu not make it worse."

"Now I have to worry about you though."

"Friends worry together." He waddled over and settled as far up the strip of safety as possible. The shelf skirting the pillar was barely a meter wide, leaving not much space to maneuver. She slid to a seat, her back against the pillar and her knees tucked up tight. She resisted throwing an arm around Tatsu, but she didn't protest when he huddled closer.

"I would've found a way. Eventually." She eyed the nearest beach, directly across a wide pool. It had a promising-looking ramp that curved behind another pillar, but the pool separating them was too wide, too turbulent, for her to attempt a crossing. Plus she shouldn't ignore the giant lava crab that patrolled the tip of the beach. "I would have," she insisted. "But we're stuck for sure now. I can't jump and haul your sorry butt."

"Bitey critters worse up top," Tatsu replied. Lin frowned. She'd forgotten about the swarms of flying enemy in the upper reaches of the cave. "Better roasted than living juice box."

Lin sighed. "You're never gonna let me forget that, are you?"

Tatsu fluttered his arm wings and settled more comfortably next to her. "Forget what?"

"All those jokes I made about cooking you."

"And pranks," he reminded her. "Rubbing Tatsu with honey, rubbing Tatsu with yogurt, …"

"Yeah, those. I said I was sorry."

"Tatsu not remember that."

"I cooked an apology dinner. Same thing."

"Tatsu remember dinner. Very snacky."

"So you accepted my apology and we should just drop the topic already," she said.

Tatsu pulled a small, closed wicker container from the backpack he managed to bring everywhere, whether lava pools or enemy strongholds. He opened it and passed it to Lin. Tiny jewel-like figures sat in neat rows, bordered by lacy greenery. Lin plucked out one and examined it before popping it in her mouth.

"You know," she said around a mouthful of strawlenny candy, "you guys aren't doing yourselves any favors, making snacks that resemble Nopon all the time."

Tatsu sighed. "Nopon recognize unfortunate placement on food pyramid. Turn disadvantage into important branding strategy."

They munched in overheated silence. Suddenly, Tatsu spoke. "It really Tatsu's fault. When first captured and waiting to be eaten by mean Prone, Tatsu made wish on big shooting star."

"You wanted to be rescued, I bet."

The fuzzy alien snorted. "Tatsu not waste wish on wild chance. Make much more logical choice. He wish for pretty girl to gently cook him, so Tatsu not be eaten alive."

Lin looked at him skeptically. "So you're saying, I'm the answer to your prayers."

"If shoe fit."

"Can we pray that somebody comes and hauls us out of here?"

Tatsu gave a restricted bounce of enthusiasm. "Full support for Linly's wish, but maybe after finishing snacks? Tatsu not sure there is enough for sharing with more friends."

* * *

 **a/n: a) Tatsu is NOT a chump. Fite me. Thursday at 7pm, REI parking lot, the one across from the Japanese knife store. b)** **Tatsu's wish is canon, straight from additional material from the Monolith Soft website. All hail Gessenkou for translating the prequel stories, in particular "Upon that Nameless Planet".**

 **Next up: Spell. Perhaps we'll see some of that Samaarian witch. Maybe not.**


	4. 04 Spell

**Inktober19 04 Spell**

 **a/n: Another mission where nothing happens, this time in Sylvalum. Two guys, talking about the past and the future.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft (now hiring squeee what are they making?), but Kadzyk is mine.**

* * *

"How do you spell it?"

"Why do you care?"

"Don't you want me to name this after you? Come on. How do you spell your name?"

"Kadzyk." He spelled it out, letter by letter, without looking up from the ground.

There was a slight tapping. "Huh. Where's it from?"

The speller stopped what he'd been doing to glare at his questioner. He set the slender hand trowel next to the growing trench he'd been digging, got carefully to his feet, and brushed the silvery dust off his knees.

"Earth. Duh."

"But where?"

"Jesus, Mathias, does it matter? It's gone, just like everywhere else."

"But we need to save as much of our past as we can." The Curator on this mission had an anxious face and blonde hair that almost faded into the bone white environment. Kadzyk could probably throw him a couple meters and not break a sweat.

"Dude, the whole planet got funneled through one launch pad. You think I care which acre my family had to skip out of back in the day in order to get me there?" Kadzyk paced a little, stomping his feet in the soft sand, trying to shake the stiffness out of his knees.

"Still, knowing our past helps understand our future," recited Mathias.

"How? I'd throw more energy at understanding the junk in Cauldros. That's what's gonna keep us alive, not the story of the Battle for Saintly King Ivan's River." He stopped and looked down at the Curator, now paused from carefully measuring the helical root specimens that Kadzyk had unearthed. "And another thing. This planet is chock full of life. Why do we have to start throwing Earth animals at it?"

"If you mean Aisha," Mathias said defensively, "she's a full member of BLADE. She's an amazing scout."

"She's a cat. How many small indigen has she dragged back to you?"

The curator shrugged uncomfortably. "A few."

"Make a bunch of cats, and there'll be a lot fewer native mice to drag back. Maybe some not at all. You want to remember Earth? Remember rabbits in Australia, snakes in Hawaii, whatever ate all the dodos."

"Hey. We can be careful. Selective."

"Or maybe we can leave well enough alone." Kadzyk looked across the gently rolling dunes, each ripple whiter than paper, then dropped back to his knees and picked up his trowel. "Ah, don't mind me. It's nothing that hasn't been yelled about at Prospector's meetings. Do not get us started on miranium stocks and all the mining probes. My ears are still ringing from Monday."

"You could always switch over to the Curators."

"Nah, I like digging." As proof, he dug up a smile and shot it at Mathias. "Don't bother naming that radish after me. It won't help anybody understand it better."

* * *

 **a/n: Not the most exciting, but I've been worried about this topic for a while. Maybe there will be weaponry in the next one.**

 **Next up: Chickens. Oh. Maybe not.**


	5. 05 Chicken

**Inktober19 05 Chicken**

 **a/n: Alexa is running for her life, because testing prototype weapons is not without its dangers.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.**

* * *

Alexa stumbled slightly as she ducked under a broad green leaf, veined with poisonous purple. The wet blast of bubbles that whoosed over her head spurred her to continue running. The angry saltat, wings flopping, neck distended, hadn't given up the chase.

She wished the ground wasn't so soft and loamy. Give her a nice dry track and you'd see just how fast she could go, but this terrain was too springy to make her best times. Nopon might like it fine, but she needed to sprint, not bounce.

She bounced now, as a simius slammed to the ground. Alexa resisted the urge to turn left into a small clearing. That direction lead to a murky lagoon dotted with small islands, each with a tiny golden beach, perfect for lounging. Sure, the current enemies might not wade in after her, but there were the sleepy pods of crocodilian diluses to consider. Soft terrain was bad, but she had a better chance of out-running the hostiles than out-swimming them.

She swerved wide, avoiding the swinging snatch of the simius' four long arms. Earth had had spider monkeys, cute and sassy. Mira had spider gorillas, literally. The detour gave her original threat an advantage. A broad twisting mass of vines exploded in another bubble blast, less than a meter from her shoulder.

"I'm gonna get killed by a freaking chicken," she couldn't help but mutter. She increased her speed and pushed through the flurry of bark fragments that stung her face. The saltat's territory had to end soon. Maybe, if she could just reach the next clearing, she'd be fine.

The tantalizing view of a open plain darkened. Another simius landed directly in front of her and it was all she could do not the barrel straight into its angry grasp. Death by chicken seemed unlikely now. She put up her fists. A ridiculous gesture, but after not one but two weapon malfunctions, she was out of options. She had new opinions about clients that insisted on field tests of full weapon sets, opinions that she might take to her grave at this rate.

The simius lurched backwards in surprise. She knew that it couldn't be on account of her laughable act of defiance. The wave of heat that frizzed her hair reassured her that Doug and his new thermal toy had finally caught up with her. The simius used its three remaining arms to pull itself back into the tree-tops.

That still left a rhinoceros turkey to deal with. "What took you so long?!" she shouted as she turned to look back.

In answer, Doug flung something at her, lobbing it over the trumpet-shaped crowned the furious gobbler. She snatched it out of the air gratefully. A small javelin, the compact spare she carried in her skell for just in case. "Yay!" she cheered.

"Ready to go, 'Lexa?" Dougy called to her.

"You bet. I call dark meat!"

* * *

 **a/n: It took all I had not to make Dougie say, "Have at you." If you have played Octopath Traveler (so good), they you must agree I deserve a cookie for resisting that.**

 **Next up: Drooling. OH SWEET MOTHER OF MARMALADE I HAVE AN EXCUSE FOR THE FLUFF PIECE THAT HAS BEEN RIDING IN MY BRAIN THANK YOU**


	6. 06 Drooling

**Inktober19 06 Drooling**

 **a/n: Vandham inspects the gear of a friend. Much talk of augments occurs. This description is highly misleading.**

 **warning: this is about the most self-indulgent fluff I've written in a while, so you may want to skip unless you can cope with the Saga of Lila and Jack. Set after their as-yet-unexplained breakup.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft. All members of the West Gate Station are mine.**

* * *

He shook his head in surprise as he approached the C&C West Gate Skell Refueling Station. It wasn't that he didn't recognize the woman standing in front of the combined storage shed, office, and quickie mart. The station's manager, clearly, standing guard over her domain of four refueling/repair bays, a small waiting area, and the 24-hour convenience store (beer! bait! Nopon lotto tickets!) She could almost always be found there. She even lived in a small room tacked behind the shipping container that stored the extra supplies and archived paperwork. That wasn't what had his brows lowering enough to make his dark grey eyes turn pure black.

He'd recovered enough by the time he'd reached her that he had a joke ready. "Something's different about you, Brown. New station uniform?"

Her expression turned from polite attention to the almost-laughter that made her eyes fill with darting sparkles. "Not quite, Commander," she replied politely. "What can I do for you tonight?"

"Nothing much. I was passing by and thought to come check on you guys. All the repairs go okay?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you for asking. We even repainted the office."

"Battleship grey, very fetching. And your outfit?"

"Definitely not our new uniform."

"That's good. Your team would end up with chest colds." He discretely eyed the lacy keyhole in the bodice of her tight, black dress.

Lila almost-laughed again. "I don't think it comes in Gino's size, much less Ricky-Bobby's. Don't worry, sir. We haven't lost our minds with respect to work attire. Unlike certain members of BLADE. Whatever were you thinking, approving some of that gear?"

"I honestly have no answer for that. Encouraging free expression and artistic integrity, maybe?"

"Bunny suits. With fishnet stockings. Really?"

He glanced pointedly down at her legs. She wasn't wearing fishnet, but her legs were smokey and smooth and led eventually to ridiculously high heels. He returned his gaze slowly to her face and raised an eyebrow in silent argument.

He was rewarded with a genuine laugh. "Yes, I know. Somewhat hypocritical of me. But I'm not going on a mission."

"Then where _are_ you going?"

" _We're_ going dancing."

A pause, only a flicker, before he had a reply. "I must have missed that memo." Thank god he had joked, he thought a nanosecond later. Thank god he'd kept his tone light and almost teasing and hadn't let her see the thing he was trying very hard to ignore himself.

"Nothing city-wide, sir. Just the people from my station," she clarified. "Everyone. Even Adola said she'd come if she can get a cousin from her home caravan to cover the store. It's Dance Night at the Repenta Diner."

"Dork Night at the Repenta," he said, trying to keep the tightness out of his voice, out of his eyes.

She hadn't noticed a thing. She smiled at his remark, which didn't exactly help him relax. "We're going to own the dance floor, or at least a corner of it. Some of the Candid & Credible investors will meet us there, and our new Orphe hire."

"Nopon, Ma-non, Orphe, human. A nice slice of the residents of New Los Angeles," he commented carefully.

"Thank you, sir. We're a good crew."

By then the momentary sourness had left his throat. "So what's the occasion for all this glee?"

To his consternation, her face became blank and she looked away quickly. After a deep breath, she spoke evenly. "It's been a rough year, sir. Even with the defeat of the Ganglion, it's been a hard few months. Case's been through the wringer with that whole Blood Lobster mess, and then the 'flu that knocked out so many people, then…." Another breath and an unspoken gap. "Moving the station was good, but hard. New owners, setting up the new market, all great but a lot of work. Then the attack."

Another pause, one that she didn't have to explain. He'd been there during the unexpected lightning-fast incursion against the West Gate of NLA. Her station had been right on the front lines. It was even possible that the station had been the target, or rather, the C&C prototype skell being fueled there, prior to a test run. The small alien allies had insisted that as much work as possible be done at the facilities they controlled. They were still insisting on it, even after the attack made the security advantage of using the more protected official BLADE hangar painfully obvious.

The attack should have wiped the station off the map. It would have done exactly that, if it weren't for Lila's near-paranoid fire defense measures. And the miranium security shutters that Adola had later explained were becoming standard for all fixed Nopon shops. And the reflective shields that the Ma-non seemed to build into anything larger than a washing machine. And the insane combat skills of Lila's human techs, all of them BLADE washouts but none because they were less than lethal. And the help of a few friendly customers and passers-by. He uncrossed his arms, flexing his left one slightly; he'd jammed that elbow pretty bad, slamming one Milsaadi attacker straight into the deck using a satisfyingly cinematic wrestling move. So perhaps the station hadn't been quite as vulnerable as it looked.

Lila's face had lost some of its sadness. "Anyhow, Gino's been out of the center for a week and his legs are really better. Not 100%, but so much better than before. We've been itching to celebrate anyway, and that seemed as good a reason as any." She managed to smile up at him again.

He realized what had been nagging at him. Usually he had to crick his neck pretty far to look down at her. Now her eyes were well above his chest, almost to his chin even. He glanced down at her shoes again. A glance that was almost derailed by the hint of lace peeking along the side of her skirt.

The glance didn't go unnoticed. Now she twinkled at him. "Like the heels?" She twisted slightly to show them off. A blue crystal dangled at her ankle.

"You're gonna break your neck, Brown. I'm calling it now."

"I'm hurt by your lack of confidence, sir. I wore those kicky little dress uniform heels on the Whale with no problem, and these are even better. Honestly, the dress is more of a challenge."

"Do tell."

"Check out the back and you'll get an idea." She pivoted completely, and Vandham had a remarkable lack of ideas. He managed a cough. No lace discretely covering her shoulders or spine, just an architectural diagram in soft black straps against her bare skin.

"Jesus, Lila, forget chest colds. You're gunning for pneumonia."

"I've been more worried I'd miss a linkage somehow. Luckily, Case offered to double check the schematics before I went outside."

"Not like you to be so … extra."

She turned to face him again. She sighed pathetically, but there was a definite twinkle in her eye. "I was driven to it, Commander. I had the perfect dress picked out, something modest but with a fun skirt, just right for dancing. It had a back and everything. Then, when I went to the store, I found out that some … some ... some skank Reclaimer had snatched it up."

"So buy another."

"I did. This one."

"Overreaction much?" he said, using what passed for his best diplomacy.

"No, sir. I was out for blood at first, but a friend calmed me down and gave me a master class in shopping. Looking good, best revenge, and so on. She found something nice for Case too." Her face glowed with humor.

Vandham shook his head in exaggerated disbelief. "Brown, you may be able to wear that get-up, but I just don't see you walking across the Repenta parking lot, much less dancing, in those shoes."

"Ha! Let me demonstrate." She strutted the length of the shipping container, struck a pose, then sashayed back, giving him an excellent view both directions. She stopped directly in front of him. In an instant, she dropped the fashion model attitude and grinned at him. "See? Good to go."

"Walking, check. Dancing, not sold," he drawled.

"Trust me, sir. These shoes are amazing. The decorations?" She waggled a foot again, flashing both the glowing gem and a fair amount of extra leg. "Augments. Armor grade."

"Stability?" he hazarded.

She made a rude noise. "Stability augments are useless. People only buy them because they're cheap. No, these are Resist Stagger."

"Level XX, I hope."

"Only V," she admitted, "but with two of them, they add up to something." She did a small shuffle, then looked at him inquiringly.

"If you say so," he grunted.

She paused a moment, blinking. "You're right. We should run a test. Spin me."

"You hiring me as an Outfitter?"

"You know your heart runs that way, Chief. Now, let's run that trial. Spin me." Holding out a hand to him, she crooked her arm and took a small step back.

It was over in a split second. He'd followed her naturally, taking her hand in his. He didn't think as he gave her arm a smart flick, and she'd spun sharply before stopping exactly 360 degrees later. His free hand hovered near her hip, in case he needed to spot her, but he only felt a hint of her warmth before she stepped away.

"I said spin me, not centrifuge me," she said breathlessly. "Sir."

"Don't you recognize a stress test, Brown?"

"Passed successfully, Commander. As expected." Her eyes flashed with delight.

"Lila," a new voice said softly. A third person had arrived during the immeasurable instant of their dance. One of Lila's technicians, Case, stood uncomfortably by the corner of the shipping container.

"Case! You look great!" For a moment, Lila switched her whole attention to Case. Vandham took the opportunity to discreetly catch his own breath. "Doesn't she look nice, Commander?"

"Just dandy." He couldn't think of much more to say about Case's sweater-slacks combo.

"Very nice," Lila repeated. "Stop tugging at the hem, dear. It looks just fine." She beamed at the younger woman.

"Well, then, may I offer you ladies an escort?" Vandham said in his most avuncular manner. A nagging devil in his head hated having to sound so safe.

He hated it more a second later. "No need, Commander. The rest of the station should be here soon."

Vandham stayed and chatted a moment longer, complimenting Case on her simple shoes (steel-toed, she pointed out seriously), taking careful note of the business gossip Lila chose to share. With the arrival of the rest of the station crew, the festive group said their farewells to him and left for the diner. He watched as Lila's relaxed gait changed at the edge of the overhang, shifting into the mechanical stiffness he knew marked her worst moments of agoraphobia. But her crew surrounded her, and he'd trust them to get her there safely. Trust in your team, he reminded himself, because you can't do it all on your own.

* * *

 **a/n: Lila and Vandham had a pretty serious relationship immediately post-game (see Lily and the BLADE if you don't believe me), but which ended for reasons (the breakup showed up in Inktober of last year, of all things). They're back to that hyper-aware, carefully friendly, weirdly protective connection that lasted most of the game, not to mention the entire voyage of the Whale and a few years on Earth. I will fix it (and again, last year's Inktober indicated that boy did it get fixed), but clearly it's gonna take a while….**

 **For the record: Gino's wearing a new t-shirt, Ricky's wearing formal attire coughtuxedocough, Twyleth is wearing a powder blue dress with her best bangles. I have outfits for Friends of the Station Lucky, Rosalee and Neesae too. Adola is fluffy. The Orphe? She doesn't even have a name yet.  
**

 **Next up: Exhausted. Which I am after this ridiculous piece.**


	7. 07 Exhausted

**Inktober19 07 Exhausted**

 **a/n: A study on characters' behavior after a really taxing, really tiring mission. Lin cries.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.**

* * *

Elma inspected the lump of spaghetti silently. It had fused into a single mass of starch. Then she shifted her gaze to the tearful teen wringing her hands beside her. For once, reassurances didn't come easily to Elma. She forced a smile and tried to add some gentle warmth to her voice. "Yes, you're right, Lin. This batch of spaghetti is a failure. But don't forget, it's no problem to make another."

"No, no, no!" cried Lin. "Dinner is ruined. The sauce will be over-done by the time I clean this up and make a new batch." She grabbed at the pot only to drop it with a clang. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow." She waved her bare hands frantically.

"Jeez, Lin, don't you know you can't keep running into areas without the right gear? We gotta develop a Pay Attention augment for you." Alexa, perched on a stool at the kitchen island, was chattering away with no concern for Lin's possible injuries. She'd barely stopped for breath since they'd returned home. "Wouldn't it be a riot if the Outfitters could figure that out? I could sell 5 to Gwin alone. At least we could develop oven mitts for you. Better us than L, because he'd probably make something that would proactively freeze your whole arm. At least we'd get some anti-thermal weapons out of it, so maybe we _should_ hire him to do it."

Lin had snatched her hands away from Elma before she could inspect them. She'd turned away from her and stomped to the sink, flicked on the tap and thrust them under the cold water. "Well, either way, we're gonna go hungry," she snapped at Alexa. Then she burst into tears again. "And it's all my fault!" she wailed.

Alexa was spewing more self-absorbed nonsense (coughskellscough), but Elma ignored her. She turned the water off and determinedly took hold of one of Lin's hands. "No critical damage," she murmured. "I don't even think we need first aid spray. So no need to drown them."

"It makes me feel better!" Lin said shrilly. "I thought you said it was only human to do things just to feel better. Or isn't it okay for me to be human now?" Her voice was vicious enough that Alexa stopped her monologue. Lin's crying increased. "Ohmygah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Elma. I didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Before Alexa could interrupt with another tide of commentary, Elma said, using her firmest Colonel voice, "We are all exhausted after today's mission. No one is to blame for dinner, and no one is bad for being tired. Lin, let me clean up the pot and you can start a new batch. The sauce will be fine."

"I'm on it already," said a deep voice. Doug was practically filling the kitchen as he slowly pulled out an apron and started to wrap it around his solid form.

"Yay! He rises from the dead!" cheered Alexa. "I thought for sure you were passed out on the couch for good, just like Tatsu. Somebody please explain to me why the 'tater's down for the count, because I didn't notice him doing much when Lugalbanda went ugly on us."

Elma glanced without much interest at the round alien lying awkwardly on the sofa. He hadn't moved from the moment he'd fallen asleep, face still pressed against his hot pink comm device. He wasn't even snoring.

There was a chime at the barracks door. "I'll get it," Elma said tiredly. She left Lin alternately drying her hands and her eyes, while Doug moved at the speed of slow and Alexa filled the kitchen with more inane drivel. As she passed the couch, she paused to check that Tatsu was still breathing.

She was surprised to see a Prone at the door, wearing an Army Pizza ball-cap and balancing three flat boxes. Normally, she'd easily identify them as pizza boxes, but tonight they looked like the answer to her prayers. She made a command decision. She'd owe whoever had ordered them.

* * *

 **a/n: First: I was going to skip a day because the last one was a monster, but then I started a list of how I thought characters would act when tired. Second: It was Tatsu. He texted an order for pizza before passing out. Part of my Tatsu is not a chump campaign. Don't get too soft, though. He was going to split the bill 5 ways, but keep the frequent buyer points for himself. Third: I channel Alexa's voice waaaay too easily.**

 **Next up: Star. I have no idea how to do this justice.**


	8. 08 Star

**Inktober19 08 Star**

 **a/n: Lila's mim is defective, and as a result she has a wicked case of something like agoraphobia. She's been thinking about all the things she misses as a result.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, which means there is nothing good here. Just a bunch of OCs. Move along, kids.**

* * *

Wind. She missed wind. The feel of it carrying the world all over her skin, moving her even when she was standing still. The smell of far away. She loved NLA, loved the Industrial Sector, loved the smell of metal and oil and heat, but she missed other smells.

Swimming. She missed that too. Balancing between the sky and the ocean floor (or even the pool floor), through the magic of water. She wasn't going to think about missing surfing; it still hurt too much to remember the Pacific.

After swimming came walking. Just walking, no goal, walking in a straight line until you were tired and turned back. She didn't walk now: she paced. Nowhere that her feet hadn't touched the day before, maybe the hour before. But on Earth, after a swim, you could walk along the beach and know that, if you kept at it long enough, you'd always reach new sand.

Sunshine. She winced. Corny, no question, but she missed sunshine on her shoulders. She was careful about how she missed that, because she wasn't sure how it worked on Mira. But surely the sun-equivalent gave the same slow warmth that she missed. Shining on her back. Shining on her head. Shining on anything but the tip of her boot. That was all she had, with her leg stretched out as far towards the dividing line and a sick feeling in her stomach while she prayed she wasn't pushing it too far.

"Gino!" Twyeth squeaked in horror. "What kind of of of a question is that?" The grey technician was patting her knees in agitation.

"What? I just asked what was the worst part of her freak-outs."

"I don't think Lila wants to to to explain how bad it is, okay?"

"She don't have to tell me how bad it is, Twy. I've scraped her sorry ass off the sidewalk more than a couple of times. You drool when you lose it, did you know that, Lila? More than drool. Straight up foam at the mouth."

"Thank you for sharing," Lila said dryly.

"Hey, if I gotta suffer it, you better know. Anyhow, what I asked was what she missed most. And you haven't answered. Gimme a real answer."

Lila collected the hot dog wrapper and tiny plastic ketchup packets left from her lunch. "Not being able to get a decent meal. I'm nauseous by the time I reach the Repenta, much less the Commercial District, and that's nothing on how sick I feel coming home."

"Hell yeah! Don't I know it." Gino made realistic retching noises. "You don't just drool, Lila, sometimes you…"

She interrupted him. "Break's over, at least mine is." She stood up, trash in hand. "Feel free to use your copious credit time, Gino." She walked towards the reclamation chute.

Twlyeth followed her. "Is that all you miss, Lila? Because we could probably order pizza more often, don't you think?"

Stars. Lying in her grandparents' yard, clinging to the grass as she looked up into the immeasurable blackness connected only by tiny lights. Looking straight out with her widest eyes, grateful to be pierced by a thousand icy needles, messages from other times. It was always a thrill to wonder what would happen if she was suddenly flung out into all that mystery. Delicious and safe, because the Earth had her back, and she could always curl her fingers deeper into the scratchy grass if her imagination got too good.

"Don't worry, Twyleth. The quickie market does a good enough job keeping me going. But pizza is never a bad idea. Let's order some tomorrow."

(The day it finally happened, it was far more awful than she had ever imagined.)

* * *

 **a/n: It was a true hardship not to let Gino swear. Please add them as you see fit. You can't add more than I took out.**

 **next up: Precious.**


	9. 09 Precious

**Inktober19 09 Precious**

 **a/n: Irina is cranky, Gwin is gross, and Neesae says some remarkable truths.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and I made Neesae to replace Marcus, rip.**

* * *

"I can't believe they've stuck her back in BLADE," groused Irina, picking at the suspiciously bright green lettuce in her sandwich.

"Who?" asked Gwin, mouth full of his own lunch. (It was PB&J. He was broke. Again. Skell insurance. Again.)

"Freakin' Case the Headca…! Dammit, Gwin, if you can't keep your food in your mouth, don't eat around other humans."

"Uh, sorry," he said, sadly a little more clearly than before.

"Right. Never mind, it's my fault. 'I will not call Case Headcase,'" Irina recited like a guilty schoolgirl. She didn't sound sorry. "I know you don't like people using that nickname, even if it's straight up accurate."

"It isn't," mumbled Gwin.

"What? Speak up, Gwin. Wait, don't. I don't need to get sprayed again."

"Gwin said it isn't accurate," said Neesae, their third teammate.

"Huh," replied Irina. "Well, let me …"

"And he's right," interrupted Neesae coolly.

The other two stared at her in surprise. "Gee, Nees, you don't usually stick up for anyone, much less me," said Gwin.

"I'm not. I'm not sticking up for her either. I'm keeping you two from making the same mistakes over and over again. That child ain't a disaster and she ain't some princess to rescue either. She was strong enough to protect my baby when things went bad at the station and she's strong enough to survive BLADE. Provided people like you don't keep treating her the way she been treated."

The three returned to eating their more-or-less disappointing sandwiches in peace.

Gwin was trying very hard not to worry about Case. He also wondered if maybe he should pick up some of those energy bars, the "chocolate" coughindigenintestinecough flavored ones, the ones she liked, just in case they were teamed together.

Irina was stewing about Case's placement with Elma's team. What made that red-headed psycho loser so fricking precious?

Neesae was alternately sweating and shivering. Had she just called Gino her baby, in public no less? _Gino_? The man with teeth like a rat and all the charm to match? What the hell had gotten into her?

* * *

 **a/n: Deepest apologies: If you need to know what went bad at Lila's station, you'll need to read the middle of "06 Drooling". Hope you can find the info about the Milsaadi attack tucked deep inside all that flirting. Also, please replace any near-swears as you see fit. I don't think Irina says "fricken", do you?**

 **Next up: Flowing. I hated this prompt, and the result I don't like much better. Give it a try.**


	10. 10 Flowing (Poison Ink begins)

**Inktober19 10 Flowing**

 **a/n: Somebody is pulling a WikiLeaks in NLA and I don't like him. I prefer to contemplate alien e-mail servers.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and this ain't one of them.**

* * *

It was happening. The medicine was flowing into the city. He'd had to stage the e-mails in minute batches to prevent automatic blocks from triggering. The Earthlife Colonization Project, the entity that passed for government in the city, had learned its lesson before he had. The elemental force that was Nopon spam had that effect on people. He himself had come to this knowledge through bitter experience. He had initially considered the idea of accessing the Nopon as well as his own people. The result had necessitated a complete wipe down of his server, right to the ground. Months of work lost, but there was no other way to free himself of the tidal wave of SPECIAL SPECIAL OFFERS and FRIEND ACT NOW FOR DEALS spawned from his single, hesitant contact. He had persevered, but he also understood at a gut level why the ECP were alert to massive e-mail bursts.

It had also made him leery of involving the other xenos. It wasn't that he was frightened of what they might do to him. He wasn't one to be terrified of speaking truth to power, even if the power had claws and teeth, ready to shred him into ribbons. Literally, in the case of the Wrothians. Besides, their online culture consisted of a single bulletin board, no anonymity, with the presumption that both friend and foe read everything and the certainty that retribution for bad behavior would be swift and violent. He had a fair idea what messages would stimulate their involvement, but he wasn't sure he'd be spared to see the final result.

As for the Ma-non, he had tried to include them, but had abandoned that idea after his fifth migraine. Their system updated daily, if not hourly. Sometimes minute to minute. Entire structures disappeared before his eyes; addresses were abandoned, swapped, shared, jumbled and multiplied without warning. Even if he could be sure of effective content, he had no idea how to deliver it directly. Worse, the Ma-non didn't so much accept messages as appropriate data in an encompassing sweep of everything they could monitor. To send one message to them was essentially to give them full, naked access to everything he had. But the ECP was in the similarly vulnerable, so it didn't matter in the end. He'd have to trust that, in the Ma-non's constant monitoring of the city, the weird aliens would also gather up his handiwork.

Anyway, the xenos were unimportant. His real target was always his fellow humans. So complacent, so willing to flatten themselves before the ECP. So blind to their own flaws and so very good at smiling while spewing lies. They smiled just as broadly as they sucked in the lies others told, convinced that no one could fool them. But he'd seen the truth, for years. He'd started stockpiling every failure of the crew and passengers on the White Whale. An embryonic, futile list. The culture of falsehood was so monolithic, it would crush truth, making it nothing more than a pathetic whimper. He was a stewing mess for the whole evacuation journey. He'd almost hoped that he and the rest of the survivors would be exterminated by the Ganglion.

But then he'd made a friend. More than a friend, a true supporter. He wasn't sure how his benefactor had gotten access to the whole of the BLADE personnel files, but that gift had changed his destiny. Every hyporacy was there, down to murder and betrayal, far worse than he had realized. His friend had given him the files and made a single suggestion. A brilliant one. The poison could be transformed into medicine, if used correctly. Instead of publishing the files in an unstructured mass, it would be far better to select and possibly edit the facts, and then send specific dosages to the appropriate target. If done with care, the society itself could be reconfigured.

Through the waning days of the fight against the Ganglion, he'd sculpted messages for as many citizens of NLA as possible. Each selection was designed to have the greatest effect. He'd studied his fellow humans, noting where they were most flawed, matching the exact file that would give the final blow to their false reasoning. His friend had been killed shortly after victory, by people that should have protected him, but the man didn't mind. It only made him put a tad more effort into certain messages. And now all of it, the medicine that would transmute the city, hopefully with fire and blood, that medicine was flowing drip by drip into their inboxes and then into their foolish, slavering brains. Morning coffee, check. Morning cute kitten video, check. Morning revolution, check.

* * *

 **a/n: I don't like this guy, and he can go whistle for a name. And if you think that his little friend was …. ahhhh, spoilermumblemadeCasecryspoiler …. you are right. His plan works too well, and that will be ANOTHER whole arc I never finish.**

 **If you think I was too excited about alien email systems, you are also right. Big shout of thanks to the folks on the XCX Tumblr discord for advice there.**

 **Next up: I'm so crabby I do not care. Cruel.**

OooooooOOOOooooo after that it is Whale... cracks knuckles...


	11. 11 Cruel

**Inktober 2018 11 Cruel**

 **a/n: Remember those horrible emails that were being sent out last chapter? Lila got one about her ex. Not what you want to read at 4 am. Don't worry, she has other emails too. Oh joy.**

 **Hard swears. Very unpleasant issues. Highly unsupported head canons, possibly at AU levels.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft. They are not to blame for Lila, or for Vandham's back story.**

* * *

Lila woke up with a bad feeling. There was a crawling tingle behind her ear that prefaced a bad day. It wasn't any sixth sense. This was a silent, physical wake-up call. Probably from somebody either in or near BLADE tower. She'd quit working for a lot of people when she moved her skell refueling station to the Industrial District. New owners, new location, new customers. But some people apparently did not get the hint.

She rolled out of her narrow bed and sat up. This was not something to ignore, nor even to address while snuggled comfortably under the covers. The tingle had passed, but it never lasted long. One got the message or one didn't. Eyes up, ears up, watch out, find out. She listened. Outside, the station was a normal early morning mix of quiet footsteps and mechanical clanging. Inside, she wasn't sure which was stronger: her resentment at being woken, or her sick thrill of curiosity. Maybe she should be dismayed at her willingness to obey. She settled on being amused by her inner conflict.

She swiped her comm device, her business one, into life and checked her messages. It was always best to start with the obvious. No voice, several automatic business texts, a gratifying handful of new customer appointments. The inbox was flashing, numbers slightly high. She opened it and saw them, a string of messages from Brown.L (lowercase a in a circle) westgatestation. It seemed she had emailed herself in her sleep. She didn't like the subject headings. They were clearly chosen as bait. "re:Vandham, Jack", "re: Hunter, Neesae", etc. She skimmed the list, smiling at "re: Birtwhistle, Hector", sighing and rolling her eyes at the last one, "re: Brown, Lila". She didn't think there was anything about herself that would interest her.

Flicking back to the top, she opened the one on Vandham. There wasn't an attachment or link, she noted with surprise. So this wasn't an attempt to phish her into danger. A wall of text filled the screen. This was something different. She started to read.

She knew what it was within a few lines. She'd seen this before, word for word. It was Vandham's personnel record. She skimmed it quickly, trying to spot if anything had been added or changed. It looked clean, if highly selective and peppered with strident highlighting. She began again, reading more carefully.

There was barely any content from their time on Mira. She was relieved that his recent medical crisis had been ignored or possibly missed. A separate table held a list of missions that had ended badly, where he'd chosen the specific team or where he'd hadn't had the right information. People already knew this. Missions went bad and BLADE got things wrong, and sometimes you had to send people knowing that. He had to send them. This dry list was nothing new, if not a comfortable read.

More material was from their time on the Whale, and the sender's intent began to reveal itself. Here was a list of crew members, all from engineering, busted for dereliction, incompetence or outright sabotage, specifically the ones that had been deemed so detrimental to the safety of the ship that they were placed into cold storage, left to sleep for the duration of the trip. Not negative at the time, but it was becoming clear in current NLA that none of the sleepers, innocent or guilty, had survived the crash. So those referrals to decommission? In hindsight, Vandham had signed their death warrants.

Same vicious, selective details from Earth, but that was worse, because people taken off the project were also denied even a sleeping berth on the evacuation ship. No chance to get off the planet before it was destroyed by the Ganglion. Or whoever had done it. At a certain point, it didn't matter. Vandham had deemed them unworthy to live, and they were all dead.

The last section was practically blinking with highlighting. She read it and felt sick. This reveal wasn't just angry: it was cruel. It concerned his nieces and nephews. He'd asked for a berth for none of them. Two had been very young, still in elementary school. The highlighting suggested that the ECP felt they were too young to be valuable for rebuilding a new society. His older nephew had been an addict for too many years. He was newly clean at the time, a cause for celebration, but that wasn't good enough. He was left behind without giving him a chance to prove his success. And the oldest niece … the yellow strips of highlighting were particularly nasty. She'd been adopted, she was mixed-race, she was female, she was disabled. She had been a trained engineer, and Vandham had denied her a spot.

All of it was accurate and none of it held the truth. The missing parts of the report stated that he'd loved them all, but he never had been given a chance to ask to bring them. The rules of the project prevented it. Children under a certain age couldn't be scanned effectively. The nephew was too fragile to risk a spot on the ship, and she couldn't argue with that decision. She could list so many crew members that didn't make it through the horror of the first months after the Earth was destroyed. So many. She had almost been one of them, and so had Vandham. As for his niece, that was heartbreaking. It didn't matter that when their bodies were restored, whatever had gone wrong at her birth could have been fixed. The fact that original bodies weren't travelling with the ship wasn't public knowledge when they left Earth. People would have believed that a spot had been burnt on someone who couldn't hold a gun or a wrench, or climb a ladder, and they would have questioned the whole selection process. It would never have been allowed.

She skimmed the rest. It was tame in comparison but probably intended to hurt Lila specifically. Old news concerning his break up with an old flame at the start of the project. Again, the emphasis was on the fact that Mandy hadn't gotten a spot on the Whale, or on any other evacuation ship. Poor Mandy. So another death sentence at his hands.

She checked the report one more time, even though she knew the answer. Her hunch was correct. They'd removed the notation that Vandham hadn't requested a placement for _anyone_ , donating his one guaranteed slot with the condition that it be used to bring another crewmate's child. "Anybody, any kid, just don't tell me. I don't wanna know." She wasn't sure if the ECP had honored that request. She hoped they had.

She had more emails to read, but she had to pause for breath, especially after she noticed who else had received a copy of the email. Lin Lee Koo, all of 13 and trying so hard to see adults as the ones that didn't mess up. Putting them all in roles that kept her safe, with Vandham as the loud tough uncle. Lila swallowed hard. She knew what the niece looked like, what all the kids looked like. On the Whale, she'd seen him tap his back pocket, for luck she supposed, right after something went bad or before facing anything particularly hairy. Later, she'd seen what it was. A photo, small and grimy, of the five of them. It had survived their crash on Mira. He must have carried it on his person at all times, probably still did, if it hadn't been lost in more recent disasters. She'd have to make sure there was still a copy for him, after all this settled.

She shook her head, rolled her shoulders, and focused on her comm device again. She'd save the files on H.B. and herself for last. She'd get a laugh and then she'd get angry and then she'd go get orders, because she guessed not enough things had changed in her life for her not to do that. But before that, she'd scan the remaining messages, starting with Neesae's file. That one wouldn't have any surprises. She'd not only read it before; she'd written chunks of it. She suspected that it would be edited into nothing but transphobic garbage, almost pathetic if it weren't for the determined, frightening ugliness driving it. That had been another role she'd dropped with her job change, one of her biggest life improvements. Smiling at creep customers had been useful but it had been sickening, and Lila still wasn't sure that she had escaped without being made permanently dirty herself. Still, it would be nothing new.

She had underestimated the author. It was worse. They had access to Neesae's full file, even the secure bits, and they had shared it all. They'd also cc'ed Gino.

"Oh. Fuck."

* * *

 **a/n: The trouble I go to in order to use a fake email address in this piece. Don't send them anything, because I think it is a ?mall? in Pennsylvania.**

 **It is canon that Lila never swears. So this is going bad places.** **Real talk: this story is going to go on for at least 3 more chapters, maybe more. I may or may not have to cheese the prompts to do it. But now that I have started, I want to see it through.**

 **Next up: Whale. It's a little weak. Neesae is a great person on Mira, not so much on the Whale. If you want a darker version, go read Inktober 2017 31 Mask, because that's her.**


	12. 12 Whale

**Inktober18 12 Whale**

 **a/n: The first days on the Whale were bad for everyone, but for Neesae they were especially traumatic.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but Neesae and Mr. W are mine.**

* * *

The only thing that had saved Neesae during the launch was the utter chaos filling the evacuation ship. Everyone was too busy, trying to keep shields from failing and bulkheads from crumpling, to follow up on the communications officer who had walked away from her station while the ECP 02 White Whale had screamed into the sky.

It was hard to remember those days. Everything was jumbled, and for many things Neesae simply didn't have the words. At the time, she'd had absolutely no idea what was going on. She couldn't have told you, then or now, the names of the people who'd streamed past her, or their ranks, or their jobs. Even beyond the official titles, she couldn't have described those jobs, or the tools they needed, or the slightest purpose for the panels that surrounded her and blinked warnings incessantly. She couldn't name most of the areas she wandered through. Not wandered, she had bounced around frantically, shooting down hallways, ducking into this door or the next, looking for anything familiar. She'd found nothing. A few places she recognized later. A hangar larger than her high school, ball fields included, mostly empty except for the blackened wreckage of a few mech weapons. A low narrow room, with technicians wrangling cables that steamed and glowed, where the shouts were even louder than the sirens. Once she'd slid into a clammy grey sector, full of howling bodies and angry, splattered workers. That place she had raced from and tried never to return. But even avoiding an area she'd already visited was hard. She had no idea where she was, what deck or sector, and all directions looked the same in the endless flashing hallways and shuddering elevators and ladders that disappeared into mystery.

She couldn't tell you how many days it had been before she finally collapsed in yet another indescribable room. She'd rounded yet another corner, seen a pile of trash, and simply curled up behind it. Somebody had shook her awake, maybe minutes, maybe hours later. It was the laundry crew, come to clear what turned out to be a mound of used shop rags. They'd swept her along with them, and when she couldn't tell them her name or rank or anything useful, they'd cheerfully given her some coveralls and put her to work, loading and unloading a dryer twice as tall as she was. "We'll get you straightened out, hon', when we get a chance. Until then, make yourself useful."

By the time Mr. W. had found her, she had figured out her name and her supposed role. He'd been furious that she hadn't stuck tight and waited for him. But then his mood had shifted. How could you expect a kid to handle a thing like that? Waking up in the wrong body, wrong name, wrong age, wrong sex? He'd praised her for keeping her cover so well, and led her away, off to rejoin the other two of their secretive group.

She'd lived a double life. Neesae Hunter of the Whale, a woman who had collapsed mentally during the escape, but who was quietly and dedicatedly reforming herself in a different field. A self she longed to become worthy of. The Kid, Mr.W's employee, given the empty stolen slot out of pity after Mr. W.'s real son had died too early. The truth that she couldn't shed. But after the crash, with Mr. W. lost and everyone struggling to create a new world, she hoped that maybe she had a chance. She may not have been anything nearly as good as Neesae on Earth, but she would be absolutely amazing on Mira.

* * *

 **a/n: I'm not 100% satisfied by this, and I may toss in an alternate version from Lila's viewpoint. Yes, I know that defeats the purpose of Inktober - try your best and MOVE ON - but somewhere there is a better version and maybe I'm the one to write it.**

 **Next up: Guarded. No idea, so I suppose I could cheese it. Make Lila's version, randomly throw in the word, and call it good. And then back to why Lila is so very upset. Thoughts?**


	13. 13 Guarded

**Inktober18 13 Guarded (continued from Inktober 10-12)**

 **a/n: Lila worked security on the Whale and saw a lot of ugly. She never expected to have to share it with all of NLA.**

 **Full spoilers and so much unsupported head canon. My XCX runs a little AU.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft and I am so so so grateful, okay? Lila, Gino, and her station are mine.**

* * *

The file included in "re: Neesae" wasn't the one that Lila had expected. That could have been ugly enough, if the sender chose to select only the worst parts. Lila should know. She'd had to include both the good and the bad in enough reviews. In addition to her official job running a power relay switching station, one of the things Lila had done to earn her keep on the voyage was to clear up disciplinary concerns. Sometimes she was sent to interview people, unofficially and casually, but more often she got information indirectly. People didn't realize that the oddball engineer who dropped by with day-old baked goods from the commissary was doing anything but redistributing extra snacks. Lila would hit a team with a basket of stale chocolate chip cookies while a certain someone was absent and see what happened. She'd shoot the breeze, share a pastry, and leave with a better idea of how a target was settling in. Rule of thumb: if a team saved a cookie for the absent teammate, they probably were doing okay. Neesae's team had put aside a lemon bar for her. As far as Lila was concerned, a commendation was probably in the woman's future.

No one really could complain about someone who lost it during the first weeks on the Whale, as long as they managed to find a way back to helpful citizenship. Neesae's original posting had required listening to the distress calls of their sister ships, initially frantic as they dropped out of the sky, then dwindling into silence. No one would suffered that trauma untouched, and Neesae had broken early. Lila had gathered from Neesae's team that her distress at the possibility of having to return to her initial post was genuine. So a transfer to the small arms depot, by way of the laundry, was a mercy. If it looked like a temporary demotion, even better. Less for certain people to fuss about.

But the email held a different report. Lila tried not to waste brain cells (or whatever it was she had) figuring out how they had gotten their hands on it. Those files were supposed to be more than well-guarded; they weren't merely part of the most secure records, they were part of the unacknowledged files that Lila had clumsily called the doppelganger lists. People who weren't who they were. People who had travelled on the ship with an assumed identity. Some had been crafted a new persona, and Lila was usually pulled off those examples fast. The ECP had shuffled placements throughout the staffing process, and this was another thing Lila did her best not to think about. But there had been worse. There were several criminal rings that had hijacked the spots of legitimate crewmates. Same name as an approved passenger, same artificial face and voice, but a different stored body controlling the robot puppet.

Back when she believed there were bodies stored in the Lifehold, this meant murder. No one would sell or donate their chance to avoid the end of the world. (Her brain whispered a list of some who did precisely that. She ignored it.) She wasn't sure how it had worked with the real system. Were the scans swapped? Or only the mental patterns? Or had both been tucked away in the banks of the quantum computers? What had happened to the bodies of the murderers on Earth? What had happened to any of their real bodies? The list of things that Lila tried not to consider needed its own list at this point.

None of that mattered. Point was, Neesae had been one of those. Her name had been linked with a minor operation that was probably to blame for only a handful of swaps. The exact scope was hard to track down, because the replacements came in small, tight groups, five individuals at most. Each set was able to support and control its own members, but none had any knowledge of other groups. Neesae's pod had managed to avoid notice until one of them was taken off-line when a hangar door blew open. The victim/culprit was lost to space, and when they tried to restore him, the Mimeosome Maintenance Center was surprised to find whatever discrepancy showed itself. Lila had found the next one contact fairly quickly, a provisions officer seemingly a few years younger than herself. She guessed he was the leader. He'd felt safe after so many light-years of travel, and he was rattled at the loss of his lackey, and so he'd responded well to the alcohol and flattery that a friendly engineer had poured out. Lila could be very naive and admiring when called upon, as well as other things. He hadn't told her everything, naturally, but by the end he'd gifted her enough hints that, when combined with a thorough search of his rooms and an even more thorough search of his comm device, she'd been able to link Neesae plus hints of a fourth member. They never did track that last man down.

She'd been pulled off the active case shortly before she started to focus on Neesae. The swelling list of things Lila didn't think about was making it hard for her to focus. She'd suffered a shock round about then, it didn't matter what, but she'd lost her footing for months. It was only shortly before the crash that they'd given her small tasks again, like writing up closed cases, including Neesae's.

Maybe she would have gotten the real facts if she hadn't wrecked herself on a dumb stunt. Maybe the poison email writer would have spared Neesae if the file had been more accurate. Maybe Lila wouldn't be frantically punching the number for every Mediator she knew, hoping to pull them into intervening, if she had just done her job on the Whale.

Better to wish for something that was still possible. Maybe Gino, a true insomniac and usually venting into the wee hours, hadn't read his email yet.

* * *

 **a/n: My XCX kept the whole project secret until the launch, unlike the canon version (which I read about too late to shift my story world). Please understand.**

 **Back story exists: You need to know about the fourth member? Inktober 2017/31/Mask. You need to know about the time Lila lost it? Twitchy Tales of the Whale/3/Broken. You need more explanations for the time Lila lost it? Uh, well, it's hidden deeply within fluff but The Lily and the Blade/19/This changes things.**

 **Next up: Clock. Lila finally is on the move. Short.**


	14. 14 Clock

**Inktober18 14 Clock (cont. from Intober 10-13)**

 **a/n: Lila decides to check on her best tech Gino, just in case, oh I don't know, he's upset about his girlfriend's past.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, which leaves out Lila and Gino.**

* * *

 _You have reached Hope Alanzi. I can't answer you now, but know that your message will be heard and I will call you back._

Lila had wasted too much time, alternately fumbling with her comm device buttons and screaming at recorded messages. Have you ever tried to simultaneously pull on coveralls and tie work boots and beg people to go on a wild goose chase for you?

 _The user_ _ **LARA NARA**_ _has blocked you._

She grabbed her second and third devices. More emails on the personal one; she ignored those, barely registering the subject names. The dark one was still empty. That was a blessing, because she just wasn't up to facing what the alternative would have meant.

 _(meow) This is Mathias' number. (meow) Leave (meow) a message. (meow)_

She checked her clock. No idea how much time she'd wasted, reading through Vandham's report. She'd kick herself later about that; he'd never needed her protection. Not as much as Neesae did, and surely not as much as Gino needed it. She stumbled out of her room, onto the deck behind the station office. Already her stomach was in knots over what she was about to do.

 _Lara Mara's line. Dish the goss._

Her relief at seeing the transport plane ready and waiting across the street from the station was greater than her nausea. Let it stay that way, please. She couldn't waste any more time. It wasn't much faster than running, but maybe every second still counted. She hoped it was unnecessary panic, but she couldn't risk it.

 _This is HT:665:Erio. Leave a message. Unless you're Mother, in which case, don't._

The pilot looked at her with shock when she lurched into the hover plane's passenger compartment. "What's up, Lila? You need me to carry a message or something?"

"Commercial District. Go." She was gasping from the small open space from station to landing pad. "And don't check your email. Something's nasty going on, and … just don't."

"Wait. You're asking for a ride?"

"Yes. Commercial District."

"Uh…"

"I'm going to curl up under this seat here. Let's go."

"That doesn't exactly follow safety-"

"GO!" she screamed. She had already wedged herself as far under the front jump seat as she could. She pulled her knees close to her face. "I promise not to hurl," she added in something too close to a whimper.

She kept her promise until she rolled blindly out of the plane, only to face one infernal block between the landing and Gino's place.

 _The user_ _ **TALMACK, GINO**_ _is not taking calls at this time._

* * *

 **a/n: Reminder that Lila has wicked bad agoraphobia. I did not know that Mathias is a Mediator; I could have sworn that he was a Curator, but people have informed me otherwise.**

 **Next up: Weak. I think that won't be too hard to cheese. Not like Tuesday. Wish me luck.**


	15. 15 Weak (harm warning)

**Inktober18 15 Weak**

 **a/n: HARM WARNING FOR THE END. Gino wakes up his roommate Lucky.**

 **This is why this bundle is T and not K+.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and I'm grateful that I could build Lucky and Gino.**

* * *

Lucky rolled over uncomfortably. He had to admit that maybe it was time to talk to Josefina about how the rent was split. It had seemed fair when he and she were more or less splitting their room equally. On the rare times they were both home from missions, they got along okay. A couple times better than okay, he thought with a sly grin. He didn't mind getting kicked out now and again when she had a guest. But this last friend was becoming an installation. The friend was a nice kid, good manners, kinda cute in the mornings in her sloppy track pants, but Lucky had camped out on the living room floor too regularly this month.

Still, he didn't really want to reopen the debate about rent. Josefina would get all huffy again, about how their third roommate wasn't paying his fair share and how Gino had his own bedroom and how Gino was around all the time so he used more space. So he should pay more. And then she'd go off on how rude Gino was, and how mean he could get, how opinionated and short tempered. And then she might make that crack about how civilians should be grateful to support all the BLADE soldiers, maybe by paying more rent, never mind that she and Lucky got a small stipend to offset living out of BLADE barracks. And then Lucky would have to consider whether he and Gino could swing rent without 'fina's contribution. Call him weak, but he really didn't want to reopen that can of worms. Maybe they could just split the cost of a larger couch or a decent futon or something.

He could just barely hear Gino moving around in his bedroom. Poor dude. His legs must be bugging him again. All the repairs he'd gone though recently and he still couldn't sleep. Maybe Lucky should get up, offer to make him coffee, heavy on the milk and maybe a little of that pollen that people said tasted like cinnamon. Lucky closed his eyes experimentally. If he didn't fall asleep immediately, he'd do just that.

He snapped his eyes open. He wasn't sure if he'd drifted off or not, but no question he was awake now. Gino was shouting obscenities. Lucky sat up and peered in the direction of the short, dim hallway between the bedrooms. Something was up. Gino rattled and swore, sure, but this was _loud_ , man. His legs couldn't have gotten worse than before, could they? Gino had described the pain once like being beaten with a baseball bat, but he'd told Lucky that it had gotten better.

The shouts had turned to screams and now there were crashing sounds too. Lucky slid quietly but immediately down the hall. He pressed against Gino's door, alternately tapping the entry pad and knocking a steady beat on the door, hopefully just loud enough to be heard over the chaos inside but maybe not enough to wake Josefina & Co. "Gino, my man. Gino!" he whispered hoarsely. More screams, enraged swears mixed with anguished wails, and more crashing. Not his work table? Not that, surely? Gino was so proud of all his wires and tools and makey-makey junk. The metallic crunch worried Lucky as much as the shouting.

Never mind waking up Josefina. Lucky wanted in. "Gino!" He pounded on the door. "GINO!" He heard Gino shout something, maybe "I'm done" or "I'm gone" or something else, followed by something that wasn't a crash, and Lucky put all weight into his fist. He kept pounding, ignoring when both Josefina and her friend stuck their heads into the hall. They retreated almost immediately. Lucky kept pounding even though Gino had gone silent.

"Move over," said an unfamiliar voice at his shoulder. "I need at the door pad." He looked down at the source with surprise. It was Gino's boss, her small comm device in hand, looking like it was completely normal to be appear in someone else's darkened hallway, asking the pajama-clad resident to stand aside. She ignored his stunned look. She was already focused completely on the lock pad and her own device.

Lucky moved just enough to let her do whatever she wanted to do. He went back to pounding and shouting. "Gino, open up, man! Cause we're coming in otherwise. Gino! Hang on!" The lock beeped rude negatives until it gave a tiny contented blip and something unlatched. Lucky slapped the enter pad. Nothing happened.

"He's got a lock on the inside, doesn't he?" said Lila flatly.

"Well, yeah, civilian suites have more privacy and …" began Lucky.

"Back in a sec. Keep trying." She was gone as cleanly as she had appeared.

Lucky's fist ached for the rest of the day, but at that moment he didn't need to be asked twice. He didn't need to be asked at all. He pounded and tried to plead. "Mijo, baby, we got you, just let us in." He tried to command. "Gino, don't be a stupe. Open up now!" He tried to joke. "So help me, dude, if you rage quit that new game …" He kept pounding and calling, ignoring the fire alarm that had decided to start blaring in the outer corridor.

Something small shoved him hard out of the way. "I'll pay your deposit," grunted Lila, hefting the fire extinguisher from the hall. Then she swung it at the lock.

The lock bent at the first blow, shattered with the second, and after the third she dropped the extinguisher and reached through the hole to shimmy open the inner bolt. The door slid open suddenly, dragging her with it. Lucky pushed past her while she was tugging herself loose.

Lucky didn't want to remember what he saw. He'd been on plenty of missions, some including combat, more now that he had switched to Interceptor. He'd patched up teammates after real bad situations where some serious crud went down. But he sort of stopped when he saw Gino sprawled on his floor. The rug was splattered light blue from mimeosome fluid. Lila growled something, a question, but he couldn't answer. She vanished, and he heard loud rummaging noises from far away (the bathroom, he realized later). Then she was back with a pitifully small medi kit. She was kneeling over Gino, ripping packs open, laying things out. Lucky kept looking down at what was on the floor.

"Go bring the fire team up here. Somebody should be responding to that alarm soon." The words still didn't register until she turned to him, her face almost as pale and grey as one of Mira's moons. Her voice was hard but her eyes were kind and bright. "Lucky. Diego. Somebody needs to tell them who's hurt and bring them here. Can you do that for me?" Diego nodded, and she asked again. "You need to bring them up here. Repeat that, please."

"Sure, chica, I can do that. I'll be back with whoever shows up." He slid out toward the corridor, the stairs, the front entry, the early morning of NLA.

* * *

 **a/n: If you need more on Gino's legs, look at From Bad to Worse, which will also inform you on why he took the news so badly. Lucky showed up first in Rosalee and Lucky.**

 **Next up: Angular (I cheesed the prompt 100% because I had other things to write.)**


	16. 16 Angular

**Inktober18 16 Angular (or, Prompt? What Prompt? I have fluff to write!)**

 **a/n: People are waiting in the halls of the Maintenance Center, hoping for good news. This includes a couple of Gino's teammates.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but that doesn't include my babies, Ricky Bobby and Twyleth.**

* * *

Ricky Bobby sat miserably in the lawn chair. He was waiting in a hallway. It was dim and it was cold. He'd been doing more or less that for a day now, waiting someplace for something to get better. Yesterday he'd answered Lila's call and had come to the Mim Maintenance Center instead of heading into work, and ever since then they'd taken turns, standing in different hallways, outside the different rooms that had swallowed Gino. Sometimes he'd waited with Lila, and sometimes it was with somebody else that Lila had brought. He liked it best when he was with his co-worker Twyleth and Lila together. Or with just Twyleth. After Gino had been swallowed by the third room, Lila had left him and Twyleth alone for a bit. She'd said she needed to run some errands. He and Twyleth had talked, and sometimes they hadn't talked. It didn't seem very long before Lila had returned with the two pink and green lawn chairs from the station's waiting area. Ever since then, they'd sat while they waited.

That was two rooms and a different hallway ago. Lila had sent him back to the barracks to eat and to rest. She told him that he should keep to a work schedule, which would make things easier to remember, but that until things were better he should come in and wait instead of going to work. So he'd turned left this morning instead of right, and walked the very short distance to the MMC. He knew where the building was; he went to group there every Tuesday. But he was worried that he wouldn't be able to find Lila and Gino in the complicated tower full of people that mostly didn't want to help him. He was glad to see Twyleth waiting for him in the lobby. Lila had sent her down, so there was no problem. No problem at all. Just the problem that Gino was hurt and no one thought he'd get better. Except Lila and Twyleth and the other people that waited sometimes. And Ricky Bobby, but he wasn't sure. Neither was Lila, and that scared him more than a little.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a second. He wasn't tired, but he was uncomfortable and uncertain and worried that he was about to make a mistake. He was lonely too. Lila was down at the refueling station until dinner, and Twyleth had run off after a Ma-non colleague she'd seen passing by, and he'd been left alone. He didn't mind being alone, but if anyone asked him a question, he was in trouble. He couldn't even answer the obvious ones. What was he doing here? Who had given them permission to camp out in the hall like that? What was supposed to happen to Gino? He needed to stop worrying, but the trick with that was to be sure about at least one thing, even something small. All he had was confusion right now, even if it wasn't his fault. He scrunched his face. He wanted a hug and he wanted somebody to check he was getting things right. He wished Gino was here.

He heard somebody lifting the chair next to him. He opened his eyes and looked to see who it was. An angular man in BLADE combat gear, wild black hair and tired eyes. No one he knew, or at least he didn't think so. "Hello?"

"Hey. I need this." The man started to walk away with the chair.

"My friend is coming back," Ricky Bobby said.

The man didn't stop. "I don't see them. I need it." He carried the chair away, down to the far end of the hall, and set it up in front of another door. The hall was so long that he looked very tiny, sitting in the chair just like Ricky Bobby was.

Twyleth skipped back a few minutes later and stood nervously near the spot where the chair had been. "Somebody took it. I didn't know what to do, so I stayed," Ricky Bobby explained unhappily.

Twyleth twisted her little grey head to one side, then shrugged. "This place isn't very comfortable, is it? I'm glad you're still here." She hopped slightly from foot to foot.

"You should have the chair." Ricky Bobby stood up, then slid with his back against the wall until he was squatting beside her. He shivered. The wall was cold. That was a rule he did remember: always take a sweater to group, because the MMC was always cold. Maybe he could remember to bring one tomorrow for waiting.

"You don't look comfortable. Are you comfortable, Ricky?"

"No."

"We could share the chair," offered Twyleth. "You could sit and I could maybe squeeze in in in beside you, understand?"

"I don't think so," Ricky Bobby answered.

She'd already jumped to her feet, waiting. "Let's try."

They tried. No matter how he settled himself, Ricky Bobby couldn't make himself small enough for Twyleth to do more than perch uncomfortably on the narrow metal arm of the chair. "I could sit in in in your lap," suggested Twyleth in her tiny sweet voice. She tugged her nose slightly, something he knew she did when she was unhappy or worried. "But only if if if you don't mind, okay?"

"I don't mind." Ricky Bobby shook his head and remembered the rules they'd talked about in group once. You need to use strong words, real yes or real no. "Yes, you can sit on my lap." It felt good to do the answer better.

Twyleth shifted neatly onto his lap. She was a normal size for Ma-non, making her about half his height. She looked wispy, but he realized that she was solid. It felt very reassuring to have her so close. He considered the rules for a moment, then asked, "Can I hug you, Twyleth?"

Twyleth leaned against his chest. "Yes, Ricky Bobby. I think that would be very nice, okay?"

Ricky Bobby couldn't tell you much about Earth or Mira or the rest of NLA besides the barracks and the station and the Ma-non ship. He couldn't explain why Gino was in the MMC, or what people were doing to make him better, or why Lila was so insistent that somebody, _somebody_ , always needed to be nearby, just in case. He couldn't keep chairs from leaving, and he couldn't answer any questions about Gino except what should be obvious, that he needed to get better so they could all go back to working at the station. But he could tell you how many ridges Twyleth had on her forehead, and the color of her speckles and her bracelets, and how she smelled like water and skell fuel and pizza.

* * *

 **a/n: Me: Angst! Trauma! Destruction. My brain: Fluff. Me: No, brain. My brain: I bet I can still make you cry.**

 **I love these two, and I am so proud and protective of Ricky Bobby, the failed J-body prototype that wrecked house to protect Twyleth during in-game Ch. 8, as seen in Shield for the Ma-non (why yes, shameless plug is shameless).**

 **Next up: uhhhhh... more prompt cheesing. Swollen.**


	17. 17 Swollen

**Inktober18 17 Swollen (still part of Poison Inktober)**

 **a/n: Kadzyk the unimportant OC from Inktober 4 returns. He's also waiting for somebody to get fixed in the Mimeosome Maintenance Center.**

 **Some swears.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, which means none of these folks are their fault.**

* * *

After two days of waiting in the center, Kadzyk felt disgusting. His eyes ached from some weird quality of the light that managed to make the hallway both dim and harsh. His throat was dry while his limbs felt clammy. He felt worse than after a week long mission that included dust storms. The fact that he'd been in the middle of just such a mission when he'd had to rush home to NLA wasn't helping. He knew the smart thing was to go home, grab a shower, maybe several showers, eat a regular meal, sleep. Hell, he could run a couple missions while he was at it. Sticking around here sure wasn't helping his team leader.

But his loyalty to the Doc wouldn't let him budge. The group down the hall, the one he'd filched the lawn chair from, they were hanging tight for a goddamned gas station attendant. The best geologist on Mira deserved the same respect, even if he was the only one giving it. She was quality stuff, probably one of the most senior scientists to survive the crash, and somehow he'd convinced himself that by sticking here, cluttering up the hallway every time one of those pious technicians rattled past, he reminded them that Dr. Neeshar was worth a little extra effort.

He rubbed his eyes blearily. He should give up. They'd fix her or they wouldn't. Maybe it would depend on the mess of info that had been broadcast to NLA. He hadn't read it; none of his team had. Away teams didn't get direct messages. One of the worst horrors of missions was coming back to an inbox swollen with 100 old messages. But one person in NLA had received the poison e-mail and had tracked them down, beyond the Oblivia Gap where they'd been digging happily for clues about boosting miranium production, and had walked up to the Doc and shot her at point blank range. Why the Ganglion hadn't tried that strategy amazed him. They'd had those Definians after all, able to take any form, including a friendly visitor from the colony. Or maybe they had, back in the day, and people used to be more careful. He guessed he had just gotten soft. He'd messed up bad, greeting the stranger, not quite a stranger, an Outfitter he'd met a few times, and when asked, Kadzyk had directed him to where the Doc was working.

Raised voices distracted him from his unhappy thoughts. Something was up at the far end of the hallway where the gas station crew was camping. Big Guy, the one who sat there 9 to 5 with a break for lunch, was trying to stop a tall black woman from entering the door he sat next to. His door, just like the door next to Kadzyk belonged to him. The two of them were shouting, well, the woman was, and the little alien was warbling and bouncing between them. Big Guy just sort of shifted back and forth to block the woman, a BLADE, from pushing past him, and blurted something low over and over.

She was getting pretty angry, that BLADE. Kadzyk could tell even from this far away. She was in full gear. Probably just back from a mission, if Kadzyk had to guess, because she didn't look any fresher than he had, two days ago. Some BLADEs walked around normally looking like trash, but he didn't think that was the case. She moved like someone who'd take good care of her gear. He wondered if the MMC checked to see if visitors checked their weapons before entering. No one had asked him, he remembered.

He was worried. He knew it was none of his business, but he'd felt a growing camaraderie with that group. The leader, he knew her even though he hadn't been much of a customer at her old station. She'd stepped down to visit with him for a moment yesterday. Didn't say a word about the chair beyond saying he should drop it by the station when he could and handing him a 15% off coupon with her number written on the back. He'd blurted out what had happened, and she paused, hand on her hip, before giving a dismissive snort. "Dr. Neeshar didn't kill anyone when she picked the team for the Whale. That's on the Ganglion."

The manager woman wasn't there now, and Kadzyk thought he'd better help out. Sure, it was none of his business, but he could talk to the newcomer, BLADE to BLADE, let her blow off some steam at somebody on the same level. Big Guy wasn't too smart and the little alien was about as imposing as a salamander. He struggled to get out of the awkward chair and cursed when he realized how long he'd been sitting there. But he was on his feet by the time the alien had bounced too hard off the angry BLADE and been knocked flat onto her pointy face. He was moving fast by the time the angry woman swung her helmet at Big Guy. He was too far to stop her from getting in a second hit, he calculated, but maybe he could be there before her third chance.

He'd never teamed with knife wielders much, so he hadn't seen it often, but he recognized that red mist swirling around Big Guy and Angry Woman. He slid to a halt just outside its reach, but it didn't matter. The BLADE never made that second hit. She'd moved back, almost falling, catching herself after the first step, then turned smoothly and walked neatly back toward the elevators. She had a proud walk, even when under control. The little alien looked inquiringly at Big Guy, but understandably he was busy, focused on other things. Then she jumped to her tiny feet and skittered after the departing human. "I'll make sure she gets out okay. Okay?" she called back before disappearing into the nicely timed elevator.

Big Guy kept focusing, red tendrils flickering around his eyes. Kadzyk went quietly back to his pilfered lawn chair.

* * *

 **a/n: Sorry about the swears; I was too tired to rewrite it. I'll do better tomorrow, although Neesae will still be very angry.**

 **This is not the first time Ricky Bobby used brainjack, see Shield of the Ma-non.**

 **Next up: Bottle. Any ideas what Lila would keep in a bottle in her desk? Drop me a line and see what happens.**


	18. 18 Bottle

**Inktober18 18 Bottle**

 **a/n: Gino's girlfriend Neesae finds herself exactly where other people want her. She's not pleased.**

 **Swears, feel free to add more. Harm mention, but if you got through Weak, you already know.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and trust me, if you port this baby, I will buy a million copies. One for each of my OCs, like Neesae and Lila. And Gino. And Ricky Bobby.**

* * *

She could see her, through the window, the dog-faced traitor. She was aware who was pounding at her office door, and she was too much of a coward to answer. She kept on fiddling with her screens, pretending that Neesae wasn't outside. Where the hell else would she be, huh? Lila's red-headed goon had brainjacked her ass and sent her marching to the skell refueling station. It had been humiliating, how that joke of a man had pushed her around like a doll with only a look.

Lila was getting up from her desk now. Lovely. So she was done ignoring her. Maybe they'd have another one of their little chats. The last one had resulted in a pact to continue hiding all of Neesae's little secrets from Gino. Didn't matter that Neesae hadn't agreed: she had no say in it. Neesae stopped pounding for a moment because it hurt to clench her hands so hard. Her secrets hadn't been little.

The door slid open. "Come on in."

"No. I'd rather stay here."

Lila peered outside and shrugged. "We're down a few seats," she said acidly. "No place to sit outside, at least for now. I don't feel like standing during out talk. Do you?" She turned and walked back toward her desk, dragging a spare chair with her.

Neesae swayed on the doorstep. She was afraid to walk away, afraid that her brain might click into obedience and force her into the room. Even if it didn't, where would she go? She'd found her stuff neatly piled in the hallway of the barracks, outside of what used to be the room she shared with three other BLADEs. They hadn't left a note, but she hadn't needed one. She didn't want to test where else she wasn't welcome. She crossed her arms tightly. It served her right that this was the only door still open to her.

Lila was sitting patiently behind her desk. She didn't speak until Neesae sat. "Thank you for coming. I take it that Ricky Bobby gave you the message okay?"

Neesae was already yearning to leap to her feet, grab Lila across the table, shake her, punch her, throw things, wreck the place. Scream. She managed to keep to a growl through gritted teeth. "That big gorilla didn't give me a choice."

"Eh?"

"He brainjacked me."

"Oh? Oh! I didn't expect that. He must have misunderstood. Sorry."

"You ain't sorry."

Lila rubbed her face tiredly. "You're right. Not today, anyway. Maybe later." She peered at Neesae with sharp eyes. "His style's pretty clean, so that headache you probably have should pass soon. Meanwhile, I've got something for it." She reached into a drawer and pulled out a bottle of cloudy golden liquid and two shot glasses.

"I'm not drinking in the daytime," snapped Neesae.

"Lunch was hours ago." Lila filled both glasses, pushed one towards Neesae, and emptied hers in one shot. Neesae didn't touch the full glass. Lila snorted. "It's not poison. Not the liquor, not the glass." She reached over, grabbed the second glass, drained it, then refilled both. "You're just back from a mission, right? Two days ago, I was where you are now. Salud."

"You're fine with all of this."

"I'm numb, is what I am. This stuff helps with more than headaches."

Neesae clenched and unclenched her hands. "I want to see Gino."

"No one's seeing him. They let me in for a minute yesterday, and trust me, what they're doing to fix him, you don't need to see." She finished her glass and poured a fourth. Neesae hadn't touched the other glass. She glared at Lila.

Lila took a deep breath. "He's not responsive. I'm not sure if he counts as alive…" Lila stopped. Neesae expected her to drink again, but she shook her head. "There's this Ma-non, Pelias. He's the one that worked on Gino after the attack on the station. I'm hoping ... no, I'm counting on the fact that he's a bit of a mad scientist. He's certainly unorthodox. If he took enough unauthorized scans when he was patching Gino up last month maybe …" She didn't continue.

Neesae couldn't let it hang that way. "Maybe what?"

"If his scans are all that I expect, and I think I'm right about it, if they are, he might … he can fix Gino back to the state he was just after the Milsaadi tried to wipe out the station. After he'd been patched up, of course."

"So that's it? He wouldn't even know about … me?" Neesae felt sick with shame.

"We'd have to tell him, of course," Lila said. "Obviously. But we could do it in a way that he doesn't shoot himself in the head again." She looked at Neesae without emotion.

Neesae felt sicker. She grabbed her glass, but stopped herself before it had reached her lips. She set it slowly back on the desk. "He's still gonna hate me."

"Yeah, probably. But that's what I really wanted you to tell you. About his suicide note."

Neesae shoved herself away from the desk so hard that the alcohol slopped out of the glass. "No. NO. I don't need…"

"It was short," Lila cut in. "Came down to him not wanting to burden the Mediators with a murder/suicide, so he saved them a step." Neesae was shuddering in her chair, but Lila's voice was weirdly cheerful. "I'm taking that as a good sign. He didn't want to become a worse person, and maybe, _maybe_ he was trying to protect you too. I want to think that. We can ask him when he's better. Please note I didn't say 'if'. I'm not saying that word anymore."

"It won't matter. There's no way he'll ever forgive me. Not anyone will."

Lila snorted. "What's to forgive, exactly? You aren't the original Neesae from Earth, but so what? You didn't do anything bad on Earth, because you didn't do anything at all on Earth. None of us did, almost. You're just an empty bottle holding someone else's memories, plus all the things you've done in the past three years. You've done pretty good that way. He can hate whoever died on Earth, but maybe not you?" Lila looked over at the still full glass. "You gonna drink that?"

Neesae lifted it but didn't drink. She looked at Lila, miserably, then swallowed the liquor. She coughed violently. "This is nasty!"

"Matches the rest of my life, so I don't notice much," said Lila, tidying up the bottle and glasses. "Go grab a shower and some rest and meet me back here at 1800."

"I don't have a place anymore. My roommates tossed me out."

"Huh. Well, you can crash here."

"On the office floor?" Neesae drawled. "Thanks, but no."

"You can use my room. No shower, but you can borrow some clean coveralls. I'll wake you up in time. I could use the company when I'm doing the evening shift outside of Gino's room."

* * *

 **a/n: Nope. Got nothing. Too much dialogue and it isn't going to get better. Is that fluff I smell on the horizon? Wait, I have something. a) Lila would make a pretty effective mediator, maybe. b) Not enough editing because I'm tiiiiiiiiired.**

 **Next up: Scorched. This is so going to be cheesed, because I have no idea how to swing that prompt.**


	19. 19 Scorched

**Inktober18 19 Scorched (sue me)**

 **a/n: I'm weak. I'm chicken. I can't be cruel. Gino isn't dead.**

 **So many words have been redacted, but I'm sure he's saying "fluff".**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft. Not Gino. Think end of Chapter 9 but with way more swears.**

* * *

 _dont talk about me like im not here_

"So he's set back to right after the attack from last month?"

"It was the best I could do with with with what I had, Ms. Brown."

"Are you sure you cleared the feedback loop, Peleas?"

"Quite sure, okay? It wasn't so so so stable to begin with. A good night's sleep, or a knock to the head, or even good sneeze might have been enough, you understand?"

"Gino had more than a knock to the head."

 _i had fing milsaadi trying to slice me in half what are you talking feedback loop knives lila they had fing swords they got my gut not my head come to think of it my head is what hurts and my chest and my back and my legs but that is old fing news_

"Rather elegant trick for for for a human, tucking that loop in the emails, don't you think?"

"I'd call it vicious. Make the reader repeat the information in their mind until they couldn't think of anything else. The Mediators have been run off their feet on domestic cases and worse."

 _what about the fing milsaadi tell me we wiped them out_

"Yet it didn't affect you, I suppose?"

"I'm robust, Peleas. Plus I only glanced at things."

 _i don't even know what youre talking about but i can tell liar liar pants on fire you got that prove im lying voice action going on you stone cold b_

"Do you people know the perpetrator? I would be interested in discussing some of the finer points with them, if you don't mind?"

"I don't know a thing about that, Peleas. When somebody does know something, you can take a number."

 _youre gonna tell me f all about what happened i hope the blowed up your gd station but good you s faced b gdi my head hurts can you take it off for me aa_ _aand theyre gone good riddance_

xcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxc

"I don't think we should be here, okay, Ricky Bobby?"

 _sssh i didn't think the manon voices could get any higher ohhhhh riiiiight twyleth she sounds worried gd it rman you gotta take care of that girl better_

"Lila said it would be okay if we didn't touch anything."

"That's not what the human in the jumpsuit said."

"Gino! Gino! You in there, buddy?"

 _stop tapping on the gd glass i am not a fing fish boy you giving me a headache hey do i still have a head guess i must_

"Gino! Say something!"

"He can't talk, Ricky Bobby. He's not being mean, but I don't think anyone could talk with that that that thing strapped to their face, you see?"

 _again proving that youre smarter twy girl not too hard im not sure im breathing man so i cant even blow you bubbles i suck as a goldfish_

"He could open his eyes. Gino! Open your eyes. Once to say you're there. Twyleth! He opened his eyes. Do it again!"

 _burn in h gdi that stings like jfc never again never and your dope face is never gonna make me do that gonna make me think twice anyway jc that hurts_

"He blinked. Once. I saw it."

"Sure, Ricky Bobby. Sure. But we better go now because that technician is is is coming back with friends."

 _bye guys punch somebody in the face for me on the way out because i feel like shhhhhhhh_

xcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcxcx

"How do you even know he'll hear you, Neesae?"

 _hey hey my girl hey you there gdi my eyes arent opening_

"Don't tell me not to be here."

"Not saying a word."

 _i wasted my one blink on fing ricky bobby this blows s baby i want to see your face wait maybe you dont want to look in here cuz im pretty sure im fed up_

"Gino. Gino?"

"I'll be watching the door. We probably don't have long."

"Gino?"

 _gdigdigdigdi cannot open my fing eyes gdi baby girl i hear you_

"I'm so sorry. It wasn't as bad as you heard, but I should have told you. Right at the start. You don't ever have to see me again, but I wanna tell you I'm sorry."

 _no no nonononononononono dont go please dont go gdi my eyes dont work ah gdi that hurts but unlike ricky bobby you are so worth it_

"I wasn't worth it, you hear me?"

"Nees, we gotta go."

 _what you saying you are so worth it oh f im missing something arent i gdi just look in here and maybe you can read my fing eyes_

"I'm coming."

 _ahhhhhh i scorched my eyeballs and you never looked thats cool i saw you i saw you baby gdi lila get me out of the hhole im gonna_

 _im gonna do s all arent i im stuck until you fish me out oh well saw my baby so thats okay_

 _hope to g she didnt just fing break up with me_

 _s_

* * *

 **a/n: I'm pretty sure that was Rosalee helping Neesae out. Lila wouldn't watch the door, she'd get somebody else to do it.**

 **Next up: The promised fluff. What prompt shall I be cheesing tomorrow? Breakable. OoooOOOooooo I can do things with that.**

 **(Also, I finished Torna today, so that was a thing. Play it, because it is good.)**


	20. 20 Gift

**Inktober18 20 Gift**

 **a/n: This ends the Poison Ink sequence. Lila the OC has a present for her ex.**

 **You should read 11 Cruel for this to make real sense.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and it's not their fault that I created a girlfriend (ex girlfriend) for Vandham.**

* * *

Scuttling the length of Barista Alley should have felt familiar, but for some reason she felt uneasy. She hadn't done this run in a while. Months, actually. She'd forgotten the tricks she needed to get across that last intersection, how to time her breaths so she could move without crumpling, the distance she could glance to spot other pedestrians that might sweep her along. She was rusty, that was all.

She saw him sitting at the cafe table, coffee cup utterly dwarfed by his bulk, and let herself relax slightly. 0600 and he was having coffee, just like he'd had since NLA was settled enough to manage coffee and cafe tables and breaks. He'd maintained the habit through all interruptions, Ganglion or human. She'd counted on him being there, and it was good to see she had no cause to be worried.

"Commander, sir, may I?" she asked, a little breathless. He waved her over to the seat across from him, and even ordered her a cup of tea. They spent a few moments while they waited for it to arrive, covering the staffing issues at her station, the BLADEs that were doing casual work there while they recovered from the effects of the latest disaster. She'd dared to ask to see her own file, the one she hadn't taken the time to read that horrible morning. He'd said no, not a chance in perdition, but she'd expected that response.

"We've got that poison locked up tight, Brown. We've put a lot of effort scrubbing and re-scrubbing everyone's inboxes and I am not risking any more setbacks. The Orphe and L can check it out, but not us mims. You should have more sense after that morning. Didn't you get enough grief then?"

"I only skimmed a few." She shrugged, silently wondering what she could squeeze out of her Orphe contacts. "Never mind that. I brought you a gift."

"Oh?" He looked curiously at the square envelope she slid across the table. He lifted it up, but something must have made him hesitate. "What's in it?"

"Open it and see. I thought it might be a good idea." Lila took a large, fast sip of her tea, scalding her mouth.

He opened the envelope flap with a square fingertip. After fishing around for a second, he shook out the contents. An old fashioned snapshot, printed on stiff and shiny paper, and a dark wink of memory card. He let the chip drop onto the table, but he held the photo in both hands.

"I wasn't sure if it had survived the chaos of last spring, sir," Lila explained. "I don't think the Mim Center ever returned your pants, so I wasn't sure about your effects. Even if they had, I wasn't sure what had happened to it."

"Where'd you get this?" he wheezed.

"I made a scan of it. You showed it to me once, sir, when we were together." She took a deep breath, but that only paused her babbling. "I thought I could make you something nice, that's all. I asked a Ma-non to teach me how to make the print, a proper print, sir, with developer and emulsions and the works, but I never let him near the file. No one else has seen it. I wiped all traces off my devices. The only remaining file is on that chip. Just in case you need it." Her rambling dwindled to nothing as she watched him fold the photo in half, sharpening the crease with his thumbnail. She tried not to cringe at what would come next.

He didn't rip it in half. He folded it again, a thicker careful crease. Then he tapped it against his chest, his hand pressing it flat for an instant, before he slipped it into his back pocket. He picked up the chip and slid it back into the envelope.

His face was unreadable when he looked back at Lila. "The Repenta Diner's still having that thing at the end of the month?" he asked, changing the subject.

Lila nodded slowly. "Yes, I believe so. Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos. I think the Lopez siblings are still the hosts. I can't go the first night, but the next night maybe." She considered for a moment. "It'll be more crowded since that's a Friday, but I think it's going to be packed all three nights. It feels like we need it more this year than ever."

He nodded, then slid the envelope toward her. "Think you can print me a copy to put in one of those silver frames? The ones they use to decorate the altar?"

She blinked quickly. "For the ofrenda? Yes, of course, sir." She reached for the envelope, but he kept it pinned under his hand. She looked up to see him staring down at her.

"Only skimmed my file, Brown?"

She stared back into his dark grey eyes. "I'm glad I guessed right, sir," she finally managed. She felt him push the envelope into her hand.

"Good." He stood up. Lila followed suit, abandoning her half-finished tea, envelope in hand. "Can you get it done in a week?"

"Yes, sir. Shall I send it to you?"

"Naw. Pass it on to Rosalee. And tell her she'd better pull some extra missions, because I'm not giving random Interceptors credit time for community building when we know it's an excuse for a three-day party."

"Yes, sir. I'll pass on the message. Thank you, sir."

He stomped off without another word. Before he left the limits of her view, she saw him tap his pocket before he made the turn onto Melville Street.

* * *

 **a/n: Whoo, I think we're done. I stole the prompt from Oct. 28th, shhh tell no one. There could be more, maybe tracking down the culprit, maybe a sweet little message to my OC Case. Maybe not.**

 **Mira would have translated some of the dialogue in this story differently. Drop me a note and I'll gladly tell you what an Orphe would have heard.**

 **I have a few other Day of the Dead stories: Day of the Dead, Modern Bromance Evolved/2/After Party, Marigolds, and Inktober 2017/14/Fierce. I kind of have a lot of feelings about how this holiday is celebrated in NLA. Featuring: Rosalee, Lucky, Nagi, Irina, Frye, Doug, Alexa, some Orphe, Gwin, some Nopon, and other OCs.**

 **Next up: Back to random silliness. Drain. Lin faces a flood, with Doug by her side. Not as exciting as it sounds.**


	21. 21 Drain

**Inktober18 21 Drain**

 **a/n: Lin calls for help, and Doug and an unnamed NPC come to her rescue. It's not that exciting.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft and I'm sure that plumbers exist in NLA.**

* * *

"Well, here's your problem right here," the maintenance technician said as she finished reeling the jointed silver tube out from the drain of the shower stall. The flexible cable coiled and squirmed at her feet as if alive. She held the end up triumphantly. A lump of greenish tan sludge that looked like a level V organic collectible was skewered on the tip. "Your shower's gunked up with garbage."

"How is trash getting into our shower?" asked Lin worriedly.

"Not so unusual, little missy. We see a lot of this with BLADE showers, especially away teams. Harriers and the like." She looked significantly at the large man mopping the floor.

"Don't blame me. I'm just here because _somebody_ asked for help on a special mission."

"It was flooding the hallway, Doug! Elma would have killed me if she saw it."

"She wouldn't do that, Lin. She might make you mop it up yourself, unlike some other poor saps." He returned to his chore.

"Well, I recommend that from now on you take a pre-shower before entering the city. The temporary camp near the East Gate has one, and I hear that the West Gate Refueling Station has a similar thing rigged up. That one'll cost you but they include soap."

"It wasn't me!" wailed Lin. "Look, tell her, Doug! I've been teaming with Alexa all week, and that means only one thing."

"Skells," he said.

"Sssskelllllllssssss. I'm sweaty and oily and gross when I come back, but I'm not covered in ick."

"So who do you think it was?" asked Doug, pausing only to wring out the mop head.

"How should I know?"

"You could examine the gunk for clues," he suggested.

"EWWWWWW! Gross, Doug. EWWWWWW!"

"I can help you out," the technician interrupted. "Sadly, I've gotten all too good at reading these results. Know anyone that's been fighting saltats? Or maybe evello? Something with feathers?"

"No … wait, feathers? Feathers?!" Lin shot out the door. "Tatsu! TATSU! So help me …." Her shouts faded quickly.

"Oh, right. That Nopon that hangs out with her. Molting season must be starting." The technician sighed and started coiling the snake.

Doug leaned against the mop handle long enough to slant a smile at her. "Hey, you got a number? Just in case I need something unclogged?"

"Pffft. It won't do you much good, Monster Hunter Man." The technician sighed again. "The molt is hell on plumbing. I'm looking at wall-to-wall emergency calls for the next few weeks."

* * *

 **a/n: Must. Not. Name. Plumber.**

 **Oh no. Her name is Maria, isn't it? ISN'T IT?! Great, now I have another OC.**

 **Next up: Expensive. No idea, but ... hello, Sharon. Maybe.**


	22. 22 Expensive

**Inktober18 22 Expensive.**

 **a/n: Gwin, Irina, Murderess and Neesae have lunch. Nothing much happens.**

 **No swears, but feel free to add some.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft. Neesae is mine, and this may well have happened after the Poison Ink event.**

* * *

Neesae took a quick glance at Gwin's sandwich. It hurt to look at. Two thin slices of bread and a purple shadow. "Same old, same old?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm on PB&J for at least the rest of the month," he said glumly.

Murderess laughed unkindly. "That's something a little kid would have for lunch. Did your mommy remember to cut the crusts off?"

They were taking a break from harvesting yet another packet of mortifoles. What the Outfitters wanted with all those indigen petals was a mystery best not asked. (Not that the answer was horrific. You had more to fear from the enthusiastic, detailed, and endless explanation itself.) The view was pretty nice, with a river flowing through a valley before dropping off into the ocean, and the breeze felt good after being stuck in skells all morning. Pity about the company, thought Neesae.

"Don't bug him," Irina chided the sole Curator. "He's trying to save a few credits. He's broke. Again."

"You know you have to be faster, because people will always be happy to collect your reward money for you," Murderess snickered.

Neesae ignored her. "You've been broke for too long, Gwin. What's your problem?"

"Hey, skell insurance is expensive," Gwin said defensively. "I don't really have a choice."

"You could always switch to a higher ranking division," offered Murderess. "I'm sure the Interceptors could get along without what passes for your help."

"Curators aren't doing that well," snarled Irina.

"Oooh, hit a nerve? Let me apologize. Have a little bit of my lunch." She waved a lacquered box toward Irina.

"Looks good," said Gwin. He looked down at his own pathetic sandwich.

"Packed every morning by the staff at Rosemoss and delivered fresh to my door before I leave. I suppose I could hire a private chef, but who needs the hassle of payroll. Today it's prociuttio e melone di dio. Try a bite. It has a pomegranate glaze." She skewered a pink and golden bundle and waved it in the air. The morsel was nowhere near Gwin. Clearly she wanted Irina to try it.

The planet Mira will never know whether Irina would have done more than hesitate, whether she would have leaned forward and accepted the offering, because Neesae all but slapped it out of Murderess' hand. "Keep your poison to yourself, girl. Come 'ere, Gwin. You can share my lunch." She tossed him one of her Nopon Happy Happy Travel Bundles.

"Gas station snacks," sneered Murderess.

"Delivered fresh while I was in my skell," replied Neesae.

"Do you want half of my sandwich?" offered Gwin.

Neesae slid a sharp look at both Irina and Murderess. "Half a PB&J? No thanks. I don't need the reminder. Not even with an apple and a half pint carton of milk."

* * *

 **a/n: PB &J= peanut butter and jelly sandwich. School lunch if you can't pay is a PB&J, apple, and milk. Sigh, I could write more, but how about you just add a few hard swears to what Neesae says, because if her head is where my head is now, she'd be swearing hard. Irina and Murderess should have known better.**

 **Next up: Muddy. How about I try to write a fight scene? How about not?!**


	23. 23 Muddy

Inktober18 23 Muddy

A/n: Gwin goes on a mission that goes horribly wrong.

Edited on mobile, so bear with me...

* * *

Gwin used to think terebra were cute. They reminded him of chihuahuas if you crossed them with aardvarks and maybe also lizards and then grew them the size of cows. He like how they'd roll on their backs and wriggle in the sunshine, and how they'd tilt their pointy ears at you and jump halfway towards you before spinning away. He'd helped clear them out, sure, like when they got too close to the tracks outside the colony, because they could cause skell accidents by pouncing on unsuspecting teams. But mostly he liked them because they were cute.

He wasn't thinking that today, not even a little. It had fetl kind of sad to be culling them by the Biahno Water Purification plant. Usually the small islands dotting Biahno Lake were ignored by BLADE, essentially resulting in nature preserves. But the terebra had been behaving aggressively, according to the water plant personnel, so Irina's tema had signed on to push them back. Somebody needed to remind the doggos that humans had at least one rung on them in the food chain.

The personnel had been right. These terebra were acting really weird. No playful darting, no cute ear twitches. They growled and hissed and lunged at Irina's skell. They circled closer to Rosalee, Gwin and Neesae. The three of them were on foot, because sometimes skell repairs hit the good, the bad, and the gorgeous, to quote Neesae. It hadn't seemed like such a terrible idea back in NLA. It had seemed like an easy mission, nothing they couldn't handle.

Gwin waited for Irina's orders. Melee or ranged? Focus, edges, or go wild? She was taking her sweet time deciding what to do with these wacked-out indigen. Gwin clutched his rifle and tried not to flinch when one of the native animals suddenly reared on its hind legs and slashed at the air in front of him. He'd never seen one do that before, and he'd never heard one make that noise, a kind of clicking rattle. It reminded him of something. Still, he was ready for it. He wasn't ready for it to leap to the side by a full meter and plow directly into Neesae.

Irina's orders were coming fast now, almost as if to make up for the delay, but Gwin was already busy, trying to pry the animal off of Neesae's neck. He heard the singing of Rosalee's launchers behind him, but he didn't turn to look. Neesae was being ground deeper into the muddy waters by the weight of the animal, and that was a problem, but first he had to stop the critter from tearing her head off. He switched to melee but he couldn't swing freely without risking hurting her. He managed to angle his sword under the terebra's chin. He shoved hard, and slipped on the silty mud, landing flat on his face. The creature reared back, the hilt of the sword swingin with every clicking twist of its head. Gwin scrambled to pull Neesae up to the surface. The mud sucked a complaint before it released her. He couldn't keep her head above the water and aim with his rifle at the same time. All he could do was shoot at the beast with his sidearm. No worries about missing it: it loomed over both of them. The shots only made it twist more, but something must have worked, because it fell as solidly as a tree. Gwin rolled out of the way, dragging Neesae with him, and was choked by the dark wave of mud thrown up from the terebra's death spasms.

It didn't get any better, none of it. Not Rosalee getting whipped straight into the deeper waters of the lake by a well-timed tail. Not dragging Neesae's limp body to shallower mud, then trying not to trip on her when he finally could use his rifle to try to shift the pack towards Irina's skell. Not hearing the quiet but sickening "pop", the one skells give right before all systems go black and the pilot is ejected. Not watching as the largest terebra snatched Irina out of the air like a chew toy. He'd remember the clicks, and Rosalee's frantic scream, and the painful thin gasps that Neesae kept making. He'd remember those the longest, because he'd heard them in his ear all the way to the purification plant, hauling her on his back while Rosalee struggled with Irina, down but not out. He hated those gasps, and when they grew weaker, he'd hated them more. He hated the trip back to NLA, thrown side to side in a transport skell, and with every slam he knew they might not be going fast enough. The mud that coated him was starting to shimmer blue with mimeosome fluid.

He'd learned three things. Terebra weren't cute, he'd spend his last credit to get a new skell, and he'd never get all this mud off.

* * *

A/n: (He actually got it all off, but he needed Case's help. Everyone was fine. JUST FINE. Inktober 2017 # 18)

Let me now praise the story MISTAKES WERE MADE by Lanca226, SO VERY GOOD AND FULL OF THE BIAHNO HORROR STORY. Fight scenes done really really good. SO VERY GOOD. Go read it. Maybe it will get finished but we all know how it ends ... badly. So very badly.

Next up: Chop? What?


	24. 24 Chop

**Inktober18 24 Chop**

 **a/n: Lin has a plan for a scirpo carcass.**

 **Something that is too much like a spider.**

 **Monolithsoft is in charge of all the good things, so do not blame them.**

* * *

"This is perfect," screamed Lin, running toward a spindly shape rising from the desert floor.

"What perfect? Tatsu only see dead scirpo. Same as every other. Too many legs." The round alien shivered.

"It's not dead," Phog explained gently. They'd followed right behind Lin. Indeed, it was motionless something, exactly in the shape of a scripo. He ran a gloved hand in admiration along the lowest joint of the front leg. "It's a molt, perfectly preserved. When it needs to grow, the animal abandons its hard outer shell. This one is almost complete, except for its poison sac."

"Dangly bit goes sploosh in fights," Tatsu said blood-thirstily. "Good credit items for friends."

"I would guess that that may also be the way the creature exited the shell." Phog waved at the dark tear in the center of the underbelly. "It's a difficult process, leaving your skin behind. Usually the exoskeleton shatters in the process. Difficult and dangerous. Newly molted animals tend to be very vulnerable."

"Yes! New soft scirpo very tasty, almost like soup with legs. So many legs. Brrrr."

Lin interrupted. "Never mind soup and legs, I'm telling you, this is perfect."

"Except for the sac," reminded Phog.

"That's the one part I don't care about. I have a plan. Now, how do we get it back to NLA?" She danced around the multi-legged monument.

Phog followed her, considering. Even reaching as high as he could, higher than Lin and Tatsu combined, higher even than Lin and Tatsu plus a slight toss, he could barely touch the undercarriage of the beast. "I think we could stow the body in the back of my skell, once we chop off the legs."

"NO! That's what makes it perfect." At her companions' inquiring looks, Lin started to explain. "I'm in charge of the decorations for the Outfitters' Halloween party. This baby will be the highlight of the event."

"Big dead critter not much highlight."

"I telling you, I have a plan."

"Tatsu not care."

"It involves candy."

"Tatsu suddenly very invested."

Lin waved her hands, trying to set the scene better. "I'll have lots of spiderwebs at the entrance, and tiny scirpos dropping down on strings. Really creep people out, right? I can ask the Ma-non to make glowing webs, even. Maybe purple? Or orange? Anyway, in the center of the room, we'll have this thing. We can set the buffet tables underneath it."

"Candy buffet?"

"No, real food, although I bet we could make all of them with spider themes. Tiny pizzas with spider webs and stuff like that. Then, at a certain point in the party, the real highlight happens. We shove away the tables and put a papier mache sac where the real one was and …."

"PIÑATA!" shouted the normally shy Phog.

"Bingo!" squealed Lin.

"Meh. Tatsu not get it," whined the alien.

"You're going to love it," Lin assured him. "And you're also going to be reeeeeeally happy I gave up on the eat-a-Nopon jokes a couple months ago, because I will admit I rejected a few other ideas."

* * *

 **a/n: Youngest Child requested more Lin and Tatsu. Youngest Child also solves every problem of story development with the helpful advice, "Add more spiders." Youngest Child is usually right.**

 **Next up: Prickly. No idea.**


	25. 25 Prickly

**Inktober18 25 Prickly**

 **a/n: Remember 23/Muddy? Where Gwin fought off one terebra on a mission gone bad? His other remaining teammate Rosalee dealt with the rest.**

 **Swears. Plenty of them. I couldn't think of a way to redact it. At least it is short.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft. If they make someone like Rosalee, they better give her solid armor, because she's not standing for bunny suit nonsense, I'll tell you that right now.**

* * *

Everbody agreed that working with Irina Akulov was no bed of roses. The woman was wrapped so tightly, you knew you had to be ready to duck when she snapped. Not a question of if, it was always a matter of when. Rosalee didn't mind. For one thing, it kept her on her toes. Also, it made her look a little less prickly in comparison, because Rosalee was always three seconds away from rage mode herself. But the thing she liked the best was that no one questioned whether you'd earned your credits when you ran a mission with Iron Akulov.

Correction: No one questioned it but insufferable trolls, and there was a very fun solution for that.

More pressing correction: No one questioned it if you came back alive.

This was turning into one of those kinds of missions, Rosalee realized as the dozen hissing, clicking, utterly wrong terebra surrounded the squad. To be honest, they hadn't expected killer zombie wolves, with or without floppy ears. They'd been sent to shoo a pack of playful doggos away from the water plant. Yet here they were, fighting for their lives and they'd only been at the target location for minute.

When the first indigen flashed past her, ripping into the side of her teammate Neesae and tumbling over and over her body, Rosalee could only stumble out of the way. Her flicked her shield arts at the party, but the heals weren't going to cover the damage Neesae had already suffered, and she was already pushed too far away from Rosalee for anything else to be of use. She fought the urge to draw the pack's attention. That was the absolute wrong move when there were this many enemy. She'd be drowned in attacks before she knew it. Rosalee would still have risked it, but something told her that the big terebra that was worrying at Neesae wasn't going to be distracted by anything Rosalee had up her sleeves. She hoped that the last member of their party was useful for a change.

She lit up her launchers instead, chipping away at the smaller members of the pack. The flash and buzz of each shot would cause more confusion than damage, but an ineffective enemy was as good as a dead one, at least short term. She'd leave the heavy guns to Irina, since that woman literally had those, in the form of a nice, neat skell.

Rosalee and the ground parted ways suddenly, as one lucky indigen whipped her into the air with a solid slap of its tail. It was a lucky hit, and god she hated luck on this planet. She had time to remember how she would beg her dad to shot put her into the deep end of the pool during the endless blistering weekends in the Central Valley.

She surfaced, spitting mud and fury. She tore through the water, back to the shore, ready to wreck house, with her fingernails if necessary. She reached the shallows just in time to see Irina flung from her skell, her silver ride crumpling into the mud, but Rosalee was still too far to protect her from the pack.

To hell with common sense. Rosalee had had it with these insane puppers. She slammed her shield down, once, twice, making sure to get all eyes on her. "Bad dogs! BAD!" she screamed. Evil hissing zombie monsters, she'd show them she wasn't a dog person. She wasn't even a cat person. She was an Irina person, and they had picked the wrong bitch to mess with.

* * *

 **a/n: I suddenly realize I may be channeling more than a little bit of my own prickliness into Rosalee. Fancy that. It's been a week, kids. I've also been experimenting with shield/psy launcher builds, and all I can say is ... I remain Ether Blossom Dance trash at heart.**

 **Time for shameless plugs: Rosalee shows up in Twitchy Tales of the Whale/1/Music, Rosalee and Lucky, and Day of the Dead. Also in The Great Skell Robbery and Ring around the Rosies.**

 **Next up: I want to write something fluffy and happy and dumb. Stretch. Not sure how that will happen...**


	26. 26 Stretch

**Inktober18 26 Stretch**

 **a/n: Hope teaches a trial yoga class to NLA. Don't be dispirited by the response, girl!**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft. Roo is my Cross (900 hours and going), while Lila is an NPC that runs a skell refueling station. I write about her sometimes.**

* * *

The scene: A largish room in the central cathedral, clearly used as a general meeting room. Today, the conference table was pushed to one side and the chairs were stacked in a tilted tower in the corner. Yoga mats were spread on the grey carpet, small rectangles of purple and bright green. Sitting on the mats was a motley collection of NLA residents, in a variety of exercise clothes. No Meredith gear, thank goodness. Sweats and yoga pants competed for dominance, with one cheerful Pathfinder in tank top and Bermuda shorts. (When was Roo NOT in Bermuda shorts? She'd only seen it once, after he'd lost a SERIOUS bet.) There weren't any xenos, which was a pity, but perhaps it was best to start with a more focused selection of participants. Hope smiled at her test group. She had a good feeling about today's trial lesson.

"Welcome to Miran Yoga," she began brightly. "I'm so excited to share this new class with you. Please do your best, because I really want accurate responses and criticisms afterwards. Today we'll be focusing on stretching and strengthening our bodies using inspiration from the amazing indigen that populate our new home. Before we start, does anyone want to share what they're hoping to get out of this class?"

A variety of muttered comments made her briefly wonder at the helpfulness of their future input. "I bought this outfit and I'm damn well gonna show it off." "Looking good, so let's go kids! Because Lin promised me cookies afterwards." "Did not. Me, I'm here because somebody suggested I take PE for school credit." "You need to be more attentive to your education, Lin. However, I have my qualms about how our mimeosomes can be strengthened through exercise. Still, I will always endeavor to excel." "Myself, I'm willing try anything. Nothing else has helped my agoraphobia, so what the hey."

Hope smiled warmly and began the lesson. After some very simple breathing exercises and neck rolls, she introduced the first new pose. "First we'll start with something from Sylvalum. Please stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Now clasp your hands and raise them over your head, palms up. Bend your elbows slightly. Now twist your torso to the left and tilt your chin toward your left shoulder. Good. Twist to the right please."

"This pose needs to be followed by us trying to rip somebody's head off," snorted Irina. "Ugh, cantors, am I right?" From somewhere in the group came the realistic sound of cantor clicking.

Lin giggled. "Then we can fling some …."

"Next pose!" interrupted Hope quickly. "We'll move to Noctilum. Lift onto your toes and open your arms back and outwards. Now sweep them forward and clap your hands at shoulder height." The unenthusiastic clapping from the class was accompanied by a distinct honk-hoo call. "We'll repeat. Sweep back, then forward to clap, this time at hip height. Nice loud claps, please."

The clapping was no more enthusiastic, but now there were bubbling noises as well as several honk-hoos.

Lin giggled again. "This is like a guessing game. Saltats, of course. Maybe we could spin too!" She demonstrated wildly and lurched into her neighbor. More burbling noises occurred, clearly from Roo. His broad grin did little to hide his guilt.

"Let's try some floor exercises. Please, everyone get settled and bring your heels together in front of you. Now lean forward, gently, placing your knuckles flat on the floor. This is a pose from …"

"Virago!" shrieked Lin, almost flopping flat on the floor.

"Sylvalum again. Actually, Ms. Alanzi, I would think you'd want to have a more organized approach, visiting each continent in turn."

"Please put your weight on your fists," Hope continued doggedly. "Feel the stretch along your thighs and your back muscles. Release and sit back. Let's repeat."

Irina grumbled some more. "I have killed so many of these creeps over the past year. Anyone got an idea what the Outfitters need so many of their skulls for?"

"Ingedients for nice threads, I think?"

"What do you know about fashion, Roo?"

"You know, those beasties are fascinating. They have a matrilineal society, and can even reassign sex if there is no available female to lead them," Lila said, voice slightly muffled as she faced the mat.

"You must have a fair amount of free time to read up on them," sneered H.B., "since you can't join anyone on missions. I presume you have the complete collection of Mira Life cards."

Lila turned awkwardly and made sharp kissing noises. "Love you too, Hector."

Hope cut through the chatter, presenting the remaining poses to limited attention. The cross-twists of the terebra pose had Irina swearing about zombie dogs; meanwhile Lin had flipped herself off her mat and rolled under the table in enthusiasm. Yama, the Obliviator, a pose that featured a wider stance and slow lunges to each side, unfortunately had Roo sweeping into Irina's personal space. The confrontation this caused could barely compete with H.B. and Lila's vociferous argument over BLADE's over-reliance on the new Ares line of skells, notoriously ineffective against the relatively low-ranked tyrant.

It was only with effort that Hope continued to present each pose, giving each one the proper time it was due. The cool down was relatively boring and received little comment, for which she was grateful. "So, I'll be sending you input forms. Please check your inboxes and return the completed assessments as soon as possible." Her class departed, now completely engulfed in a heated debate over skells, tyrants, and why ether-based weaponry sucked/ruled big time. Hope considered if maybe she should target the next test toward Ma-non, and whether there was any possibility in pizza-inspired poses. "Hmmm. Hawaiian with hip movements? Supreme upward lift?"

* * *

 **a/n: Everything I know about yoga comes from WiiFitU and could we please port that, okay? I want it almost as much as I want a port of XCX, and I promise to try to use it for almost as many hours.**

 **Next up: Thunder. This has possibilities. I'm itching to go back to those zombie terebra from Muddy/Prickly.**


	27. 27 Thunder

**Inktober18 27 Thunder**

 **a/n: Lin, Tatsu, and my personal Cross, Roo, shelter from a storm. You get an idea of how aggravating my Cross can be.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft, even Cross, because they gave me that character creator to play with.**

* * *

"You know, weather wasn't like this back on Earth." Lin looked at her companion out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting comfortably, legs stretched out, one hand dangling over a bent knee, staring out of the entrance to the cave where they were sheltering. Outside, an electric storm sizzled the cliffs that surrounded the depthless Oblivia Gap.

She waited for him to ask. "Tell me what it was like. Help me remember." He didn't ask. Lin wasn't sure why that made her so upset. He never asked about Earth, not even when it would have made his life in NLA easier. Sure, no one had figured out his past or how he'd gotten on the Whale, and, sure, maybe there was something bad that he didn't want to find out about. But that didn't explain why he never asked about _anything_ from before. She knew he had no clue about a lot of things, and still he never asked. Worse, when people explained things, he'd zone out. She'd noticed he'd start fiddling with his gear, or surreptitiously swiping his comm device screen, or making the stupidest slurps of whatever frozen coffee drink that might as well be surgically attached to his hand. And it was a guarantee that, as soon as they'd pause for breath, he'd jump to his feet and suggest a mission or a challenge or a run for yet more coffee, and be out and away whether somebody agreed with him or not.

Not today. They were stuck, their gear was packed away, the comm devices wouldn't work during the height of the storm, and she'd learn him something about Earth. It wasn't healthy to stay that disconnected to what had been their home. Once upon a time. Far away. It wasn't fair that she missed it and he didn't.

"It wasn't like this," she started again. "First you'd get this weird wind, very gentle, but it made the hair on your arms feel alive. Then you'd get the smell. I always thought it was the smell of earthworms waking up, except it wasn't gross. Just like a nice promise. The sky would go dark, and you'd hear the first sounds of thunder. Always gentle at first, and sometimes the rain would start before you heard it, but also gentle."

She leaned forward to peek into Roo's face. He was paying attention, at least she thought he was. One foot was jiggling slightly, but his narrow blue eyes hadn't gone colorless. She'd seen that once, when she was trying to explain Earth schools to him. She figured that she might as well keep talking.

"Then you could hear the storm approaching. Not like here, where it just shows up, bang." In response, there was a loud crack of thunder. The echoes faded deep into the cave behind them. Lin jumped just a little. "It could get as loud as this, but it grew. Then the rain would get heavy, sometimes louder than the thunder." She crawled to the entrance, almost as perfect a rectangle as a carved doorway. No rain. Just lighting slicing through the sky and sandy wind that stung her face.

She settled back, making herself comfortable between a snoozing Nopon and the silent Pathfinder. "Then they'd roll away, the lightning and thunder, and the rain would either get lighter or maybe just more steady. Once, I woke up in the middle of the night when there was a storm. It was so loud that I was a little frightened, but it was kind of nice, too. I snuggled under my blankets, and listened to it go at it like everything, right over my head. But then it got quieter and quieter. I tried to stay awake until there wasn't any more thunder, but I fell asleep before that happened."

She finished her story, and the cave fell silent except for a few snores from Tatsu. The other human didn't say anything, not a grunt, not a sigh. Nothing. Lin might as well have dropped rocks into the Gap for all the reaction she got. Just like in her story, the electric storm ended after a few more minutes, and totally unlike in her story, the ending was immediate, as was Roo's reaction. "Yahoo, kids! Finally cleared up. Let's get going!" He bounced on his heels slightly. "I'm gonna check on the …" He waved vaguely at whatever might be outside and dashed away.

Lin sighed as she got to her seat and dusted herself off. Tatsu was already wobbling upright and snapping on his immense travel sack. Lin sighed again and looked out the cave entrance, toward wherever Roo was keeping himself busy.

"Tatsu like fairy story. Like mamapon tells littlepon, very magical and nice."

"It was real, Tatsu. And you slept through it."

"Tatsu awake for best bit."

"Which was?"

"Whole thing. Now do what Roo says. Kids are going!"

* * *

 **a/n: Ahem. Tatsu. Is. Not. A. Chump. And I will write him a redeemed version if it takes my last brain cell. Sorry that Roo is such a disassociated choose your noun, you can't be wrong.**

 **Next up: Should have been Gift, but I stole that for 20. So I do whatever I want or I use the old prompt, Breakable. Or both.**


	28. 28 Breakable

**Inktober18 28 Breakable**

 **a/n: Frye and L and the Rexoskell! Sort of.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft and they can use my L-isms, for a port perhaps, please**

* * *

"Ignore the mim!" screamed the Definian leader. "That isn't the smart target! Not like the xeno. Xenos are so ... breakable."

"Nice. 10/10 for menacing," Frye shouted back. "But maybe you wanna reconsider. I got some Wrothians you might like to meet. Plus my little friend here. Say hello to him."

"Hello!" the tall blue alien shouted cheerfully. He then hissed an aside to the man fighting beside him. "Frye! We have been told that it is undiplomatic to interrupt villainous monologuing."

"Case by case basis, pal," Frye grunted, swinging his sword furiously. "Me, I'm not a great listener."

"Ah, you are a kill first and talk later person."

"You took the words out of my mouth."

Much fight scenes went on, but the planet Mira could hardly keep track of it all. So many fight scenes, all over the planet's skin, sometimes small, sometimes large. The ice-haired human was slicing away with the broadest of swords, a meaty metal object with no discernible edge, although it did have plenty of random cubes and wires in places. If the planet Mira had known the sport, it might have compared it to a baseball bat. As it was, the planet granted the sword special anti-mechanical properties and called it good, although even a simple baseball bat would have been pretty formidable in the hands of the enraged Frye.

Beside him was one of the planet's favorites, a tall, elegant alien, meticulously dressed and with weaponry that floated and shimmied. The planet Mira loved anything that played fast and loose with gravity, and it suspected that L was currying favor. Favor granted. It wasn't clear where the xeno was aiming, or even if he was. Still, random clusters of glittering puge fell first to their knees and then onto their mechanical faces. Mira made sure of it. The small disruptions in the massive tide of enemies, combined with Frye's sweeping clearance, kept the opponents from effectively focusing on L.

The planet waited patiently for the next bit, because there was always a next bit. While it waited, it tried to figure out why this pair was in this situation. Frye's thoughts were focused on efficiency and squeezing out a little more power. Also, paperwork, and how he'd pass that task over to L when they got back to their city of sapphire. The planet ignored that, and also ignored L's thoughts, which would involve far too much business administrative details. The planet KNEW this kind of thing, but that didn't mean it needed to review it constantly.

The short version would be a calculated curiosity about a material only found in the corner of what they were calling Cauldros these days. A corner that was already occupied by a rather irritated Dephinian who had finally, FINALLY, collected enough puge to attempt to rescue her mother from human captivity. Filial love was something that the planet respected, although it wasn't sure the mother in question either deserved it or was all that unhappy about her hostage status. The planet understood how trying it was to be a parent. There was something to be said for being put on a forced break. "I can't solve your little problems. See, I'm being held hostage here! Oh well!" However, the mother didn't much care for rain, so the planet decided that a few nice sunny days might be a kindness.

The planet hadn't exactly not been paying attention, but it did need to refocus when it saw the next bit starting. Rising from a convenient cave (the planet was proud of its caves and of how the visitors had been finding inventive usages for them), a giant fighting machine uncoiled its limbs, its claws, and especially its broad glowing tail. The planet approved of the tail, which had a lovely color scheme, shading from delicious purple to flaming red at the tip. 10/10, the planet mimicked, those aesthetics are lovely.

"You will die now, you and your friend," screamed an amplified version of the Definian's voice.

"Oh, crud," said Frye. "That's not good. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"We don't know, Frye, but perhaps we have twisted the doggo," L offered.

The planet Mira, eavesdropping on the human's mind, didn't know why it wanted to giggle, but decided that it would. Later. In the form of a nice energy mist. For now, it would enjoy the show.

* * *

 **a/n: The written version was very different. I'm not sure where I went wrong.**

 **Next up: Double. (With cream? Hello, Roo. Maybe not.)**


	29. 29 Double

**Inktober18 29 Double (or, prompt? What prompt?)**

 **a/n: Blood Lobster, what a quest. My dorky Cross Roo had opinions about it.**

 **Too long, barely edited, spoilers and plenty swears, lots of them, more as it went on and I lost control of the story.**

 **Monolithsoft made me cry for three days, and all the good stuff except for Roo is theirs.**

* * *

I had to fight to inhale. My throat wanted to shut itself with every breath at the same time that my lungs were screaming to race ahead. I gripped my dual guns, relaxed my fists, gripped again. We were crouched outside the cavern, the last stop, the others waiting for me to give the signal. I wasn't the senior team member, but I'd done this run twice before, and this was my rodeo.

"Nervous?" asked Doug in his steady baritone.

"I would kill for a coffee drink right about now," I managed. I said it slowly, forcing the calm. Only way to control your breath was to control it. Grip it like you grip your sword, your guns, your skell controls.

Frye's snort behind me told me that I'd done a good enough job. Doug nudged my shoulder. The fourth member was as silent as he'd been since he accepted my request a few hours ago.

As I said, this was my third time at it. First time, I'd gone in blind, no prep, with a whatever team. We'd barely managed to drag Gwin out in one piece. We'd regrouped by our skells, cursing that we'd let our ground game go so rusty, done a quick patch up of our gear now that we had a better idea what we were facing. And had to flee a second time. In better shape, sure, although Irina's loud criticism did nothing to erase the thing, the thing I'd heard. The thing that answered a question in the worst way.

I'd been longing for a coffee drink for the better part of two days. Not for its sweetness, or the buzz, or the bitter hit of brain freeze. Still, there it was, riding in my head, the call of the coffee. I'd been dying to suck on one since the minute that terrorist, anonymous except for his overblown name, had called me and teased me for being too slow. No, not then. I know I'm no ninja, never wanted to be one, and it's the same whether on missions or in NLA. Even when I race, I meander. I have no shame in taking my own sweet time. No, the craving hit right after the Blood Lobster set off his 51st bomb, knocking me off my feet, splitting my ears, punching the air out of my lungs. Killing 4 people.

I wanted that coffee but no way was I getting it, no matter how much I needed it. For two straight days, as I followed each clue, finding bomb after bomb, cute little toys that brought me closer to strangling that asshole with them, carrying me to this cave buried under the ruins of Cauldros, I tried hard to keep my breathing under control, and failed half the time. I needed that coffee, and I'd let people die because I'd been too lazy, and if I didn't keep a strong hold on my lungs I'd start wheezing and drooling. Best I could do was let my throat twist into something no thicker than a straw, and pray that held me together.

Alanzi had taught me that trick, breathing through lips pursed like you were sucking on a straw, counting slow in and slower out. Make it tight enough and you could get ahead of it. But it looks bad, twisting your face like that, day in and day out. Better to look like a double shot soy maple frappuccino addict, 'cause that's okay somehow, plus it can be pretty tasty those times I can enjoy the damn thing.

Now we were here, ready for the third round. First time, like I said, I'd gone in all wrong, because I was pretty damn sure he had him, Justin, my shining golden boy. The Blood Lobster had screwed with my head pretty bad by then, and I was convinced that he'd taken him as a hostage, either straight out of NLA or because my sweet nerd child had finally gone off on the adventure he deserved, lured directly into this horror show. It would have been just like him, to want to prove how much he wanted to protect NLA. I wouldn't have blamed him; I would have been glad to fight beside him. But by god I was gonna kill the Blood Lobster if he'd hurt my boy.

Not my boy. I'm not the kind to collect family as I rattle around NLA, not like other folks. Doug is Lin's Uncle Dougie, and Alexa is a bonus sibling for Frye when he's not coping with his real one, and I can't tell you how many rookies have accidentally called Elma "mom". Me, I'm old enough to be somebody's dad, but … well, maybe I am. I think I am. And what I felt, what I feel, for Caroline, wherever she is (and I _will_ find her), I felt for Justin. That same pride and need to protect and gratitude to have them in my life. He made my day better, seeing him help the xenos or guide other humans or even just helping fucking little old ladies across the fucking street. The Blood Lobster had threatened my boy, and I had a skell full of disabled bombs. I was gonna force feed every fucking toy lobster down his fucking throat and see how well he could breath then.

Yeah, well. Anyway, I was on edge the first time. The second attempt wasn't so bad, even if we got our butts kicked just as much. I knew that the hostage crack was a lie, and that Justin was nowhere near that hellhole. I had space to breathe. I could play the fool a dozen times, inching my way towards success, even if it made Irina so mad that she a) kicked me in the shins, and b) stopped talking me for a year. Not that it wasn't a dangerous thing to risk, because I've seen her kick Harriers flat on the ground and not stop, but at least it would have been quiet after.

So we went in, weak as we were, and promptly started losing to the mech-and-a-half the Blood Lobster was using, and I was relaxed enough that I could pay attention to what he was saying and ... I'm not sure what it was. His voice was distorted and practically inhuman, not in a nice xeno way but in a mocking false way, but something he said … something … it clicked and if I needed a straw before, I needed one from then on like water needs wet.

We'd gone home in disgrace. The rest of the crew was honestly a little grateful to quit, and even Irina's healthy pride wasn't enough to have her argue when I blurted out who I was gonna tag in. Heaviest, most op team I could think of. A caricature of a team: Doug the Human Skell, Frye the I'm not using that dumb nickname of his, and Mr. Blossom Fucking Dance himself. Yup, in front of god and Mira, I went and asked Nagi if he'd team with me.

I hadn't told anyone else the truth, but even I'm not loose enough not to tell the Secretary of Defense the full truth. "I think I know who it is."

"Not Ganglion then."

"No, sir." I choked out my guess and he hadn't said a thing since then, just tugged his gloves more neatly into place. This didn't make me feel better, because you know he'd tell me if I'd gotten it wrong.

So, yeah, there we were, ready for Round Three, and I was dying for a coffee. We'd laid waste to everything from the cave entrance to this last step, and we were exactly as ridiculously powerful as expected. I looked them over one last time. Too much weight, too much attack, and something in the Secretary's eyes was better than a straw. I'd chosen them for reasons, because I couldn't lose again, and also …

In all of New Los Angeles, they know more about mistakes and forgiveness, and I was gonna need that bad. Once we won.

And then I could make sure my golden boy was okay. One slow breath at a time.

* * *

 **a/n: This was _supposed_ to be about the wonders of coffee. There is a reason why I don't let my boy Roo talk much, because honestly, it really blows his chill cover. Comic relief, Roo! You had one job! COMIC RELIEF. What can I say, it's been a week.**

 **Next u: Who knows, but if it makes me cry again I will get even more testy. Jolt. Really? What kind of a prompt is that?**


	30. 30 Jolt

**Inktober18 30 Jolt.**

 **a/n: Alexa and H.B. on a mission, with a small battle, even.**

 **Small swears, not enough editing.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft. I'm not sure if this is Primeval Meadow or Cryptic Sign. Field trip time!**

* * *

Oh babies, thought the planet Mira, we are so close…. And alas but I have nothing to offer you….

"What the hell did you do that for?" she shouted over the comm device plastered to his ear.

"You said you needed something new," he explained calmly. "Something to shake you out of your rut. You're welcome."

"You pushed me off a cliff!"

"What better way to jolt you out of your doldrums and give you new challenges?"

"I'm going to jolt you, H.B., once I get up to you. You're so lucky Doug isn't up there, or you'd learn new ..."

"Oh dear, the reception is terrible. Can't hear you at all. Energy storm coming, perhaps?" he shouted back at her, before snapping the connection off. He was contented to cool his heels, up here with the skells. Alexa's rut had been becoming his as well, because if he'd had to hear her list all the features of her ride in lustrous detail, he probably would snap.

He considered if perhaps he already had. Pushing a teammate off a precipice might be construed that way. But really, there would be no harm to Alexa, and she might enjoy the journey back to him. Certainly, reaching inaccessible places was a goal in itself for some people, especially in his division. He conceded that he should probably respond to her next contact, because he was certain he could give her advice on how best to free climb best to the plateau.

It was a lovely setting. Low orange blooms waved gently in the breeze, dotting the meadow, and the view of Oblivia was exquisite. The nameless serpentine river (and he felt a passing irritation that NONE of his suggestions had been accepted) cut through the desert landscape. The glitter of the steady waters made an excellent focus of contemplation. He had just decided that the scene might be improved if the river cut directly through the Great Ring, instead of brushing its base, and had begun composing an official memo on this point, when he realized he was not alone.

"Honk. Hooooooooo."

He didn't have time to react. The grey wingtips slammed into his shoulder, and he cartwheeled perilously close to the cliff edge. He lifted his head and received a face full of bubbles, charming at a distance perhaps, but pushing him closer to the drop. He dug in his toes, and readied his ranged weapon. He knew the animal, a saltat, not particularly imposing, and with regular behavior patterns that he could exploit. First a sweeping attack, then the sodden blast, and now a noisy demonstration was due. It would call for its nest mates, but H.B. would prevent any dangerous reinforcements. He fired off a volley of shots, then ran for a more central part of the meadow. That way he would only have to face indigen, not gravity and a lack of ground.

A perfectly calculated plan, except he'd forgotten the gerrid tyrant hidden in that locale, its flanged extremity resembling one more oversized flower.

A few minutes of fierce battle later, he was very glad to see a skell rising up over the edge of the meadow. Thank goodness! Alexa must have admitted she wasn't up to the challenge of the climb and had gone for aid from a local station. Her assistance was nicely timed.

Exactly one minute later, after three ranged attacks by the bulky skell, one for each indigen (the saltat had indeed had a friend), H.B. reconsidered his position yet again. Funnily enough, the skell was piloted by a large and surprisingly grumpy Harrier, and H.B.'s luck had definitively run out.

* * *

 **a/n: Well, okay, if the gerrid is real, it's Primeval Meadow.**

 **My kid's comment: "Alexa and H.B. represent the duality of nerddom. You want to tell everyone about the really neat thing you like, but [pushes up glasses] you want to be superior about it. But it's REALLY NEAT AND YOU HAVE A LOT TO SAY!"**

 **Next up: I wish it were Lady's choice. Slice. Of cheese, honestly, because I have a different story I need to put up.**


	31. 31 Slice

**Inktober18 31 Slice**

 **a/n: Tatsu and Linly compete to tell scary stories to Tatsu's siblings.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolithsoft and Washington Irving. Don't blame Lin.**

* * *

"And then HEROPON GOT EATEN UNCOOKED!" Tatsu's voice rose to a creepy if squeaky howl.

"OoooooOOOOOOooooo!" muttered the cluster of littlepon around him. One very pink, very small littlepon burst into tears.

Lin picked up the weeping furball and gave it a cuddle. "Tatsu! That's too scary for your brothers and sisters. You need to be nicer."

"Linly jealous human stories not so creeptastic," sneered Tatsu.

Lin shoved the damp littlepon off her lap. "Oh, no. It is on now. Have you ever heard of the Headless Horseman?"

"What horse?"

"Like a skell, but in the old days."

"Old skell not that scary."

"Well, listen. Once there was a skinny, snoopy school teacher that thought he was hot stuff."

"Tatsu imagining H.B. but old days."

"Don't interrupt … but, exactly that," Lin said with a smile. "He was always hogging the food at parties even though no one invited him…"

"Gwin," muttered the Nopon.

"And making eyes at girls that had no interest in him …"

"Also Gwin."

"STOP!" Lin was trying not to laugh. "Well, one night, somebody got sick of it and told him a spooky story, about the Headless Horseman. It was the ghost of a Hessian soldier…"

"What Hessian?"

"Mercenaries, like Wrothians. He'd been killed in the Revolutionary War when a cannonball blew off his head. They had to bury him without it, because they never found it."

"OooooOOOOooo," murmered the littlepon, who had now encircled Lin.

"But his ghost was restless, because he wanted his head. Any head. He wasn't very particular. So he would ride on nights around Halloween, but only moonless ones, looking for a head." Lin was enjoying the tale almost as much as her audience. "The smart people put out pumpkins carved with faces, with little candles flickering inside, hoping that he'd take those instead of slicing off the heads of the living. But he wasn't quite that easily fooled."

Lin paused for dramatic effect, then continued nonchalantly. "Of course, no one really believed it, but the school teacher was new to the area and he fell for it. Boy, did he fall for it. He only had one extra piece of pie, and only tried to kiss one girl, before he announced he had to get home early, because he wanted to grade some papers. Sure, he did," she sneered. "He was afraid to be out after midnight. The witching hour!"

"OoooooOOOOoooooo," repeated the littlepon with satisfaction.

"So he hopped on his old, rackety horse."

"Old time or old old?"

"Old and worn out, because he was cheap too."

"Like Doug, but Doug smart to buy better skell."

"Horses have legs. Had legs." Lin sighed. "People would ride on their backs."

"Like nopopotomus?" asked one littlepon.

"Uh, maybe not so big, and definitely faster. Anyhow, the school teacher's horse wasn't fast at all, but the teacher kept kicking it to make it gallop home. He shouldn't have rushed, because he lost his way and soon was deep in a spooky forest with dark trees. It was dark, no moon…"

"Moons," corrected the same littlepon.

"Shh. Linly home only have one moon, very poor land that go on and on and on," a sisterpon scolded him.

Lin stopped her story. Tatsu started talking loudly instead. "Only one moon because IT ATE ALL ITS BROTHERPON AND SISTERPON. Very powerful moon. Now shut traps and open earflaps. Tell more of lousy teacher and spooky soldier, Linly!" He added with satisfaction, "Tatsu sure in not end well, not at all."

Linly continued, with only a slightly wobbly voice. "Yeah, there wasn't a moon and it was pitch dark, but the teacher heard something. The sound of hoofbeats, far away. Very fast ones, and the horse must have been powerful, because they were very sharp. The teacher's horse kept plodding along, no matter what he did. The other horse was getting closer. And closer. AND CLOSER!"

"OoooOOOOoooooo," said the chastened littlepon.

"He turned around and saw something flickering. He relaxed. It was just another party guest, carrying a pumpkin to help light the way. He was stupid not to have taken one himself. The rider kept coming closer, and he could just make out the horse. It was huge."

"Like Amdusias?"

"Sure," Lin said. "But then he noticed something. The pumpkin was being held really high. Not in the arms but on the shoulders. LIKE A HEAD!" She paused to let the littlepon shiver a little. "The horse was weird too, because its eyes were glowing, and what looked like flames were puffing out of its mouth." She snorted, and the littlepon jumped.

"Even the teacher's horse must have realized something was wrong, because it started racing along like it hadn't done in 20 years. The teacher was bounced every which way." Lin picked up the pink littlepon and bounced it on her knee in demonstration. Then she put him back on the floor. "But it was no good. The demon horse was catching up on them, and the teacher could see, very clearly, by the light of the stars, that it was a ragged figure of a Hessian soldier, with no head but a glowing pumpkin."

The group around her was hanging on every word. "For one moment, the schoolteacher thought he saw the lights of his home up ahead. He might be safe, even though the ghost was gaining on him. He'd get there in time and be safe. He looked back, and to his horror, the ghost removed the pumpkin from off its neck and raised it high above its shoulders. His arms stretched higher and higher, cutting into the midnight sky. And then there was a crack as he threw the pumpkin STRAIGHT AT THE TEACHER'S OWN HEAD!"

"OoooooOOOOooooo." The pink littlepon burst into tears again and wrapped its wingarms around its face. Even Tatsu jumped a little.

Lin leaned back. "No one ever saw the teacher again. His horse showed up in the next town over, but they never found him, not his body, not his head. Some people said he'd moved away and was living with a rich widow, but they just wanted to think something less scary. Most people were convinced he'd been caught by the Headless Horseman!"

As the party ended, each littlepon clutching a bulging sack of candy from the most excellent pinata, Tatsu waddled up to Linly. "Linly tell very good old story."

"Why, thank you, Tatsu."

"Make Tatsu sleepy though. And empty hungry. So Tatsu is sleepy hollow." He tilted his head slyly and whether he winked or not was completely hidden by his coke-bottle glasses. "Best plan is fill Tatsu with extra cookies to keep him quiet."

"There are other methods, Tatsu," Lin growled, "but, lucky for you, I have some spare cookies. Just don't go out at too late tonight, or something bad might happen to you."

* * *

 **a/n: Did it. 31/31. It was a fun run.**

 **Drop me a note to say what you liked best, and helloooooo to Wordsmith. Twitter is so much not as fun as Miiverse was, sigh.**


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